Shakib Al Hasan

Shakib Al Hasan stands as Bangladesh's greatest cricketer, a performer whose all-round brilliance carried his nation on the biggest stages. His left-arm spin and busy middle-order batting made him, at various points, the world's top-ranked all-rounder in all three formats, a rare feat for a player from an emerging cricketing nation.

He burst onto the scene with aggressive strokeplay in the late 2000s, but it was his brain with the ball that truly set him apart. Shakib uses subtle changes of pace and flight to deceive batters, and he strikes in the crunch moments, as with his five for 29 against Afghanistan at the 2019 World Cup. That tournament was his peak: 606 runs and 11 wickets, an all-round return no one had matched in a single World Cup. Across World Cups he has more than 1,000 runs and 40 wickets, a double no other player has achieved.

In Tests he scored five hundreds, including a double century against New Zealand, and passed 200 wickets, a runs-and-wickets pairing few all-rounders have approached. He faced controversy too, serving a one-year ban in 2019-20 for failing to report approaches from bookmakers, and always returned as the fulcrum of the side.

Shakib announced his retirement from T20Is after the 2024 World Cup and played what proved his final Test that year, his international career stalling amid Bangladesh's political upheaval and legal troubles at home that kept him out of the national side. He has continued in franchise leagues around the world, the player who, more than any other, put Bangladeshi cricket on the map.