Ashfaq-Ul-Alam

The 2021 ICC T20 World Cup was a disaster for Bangladesh. The campaign began with a defeat to Scotland in the preliminary round and ended with five losses and zero wins in the main phase.

Auctions in the Bangladesh Premier League (BPL), and the number 12, seem to have some sort of numeric connection.

What does it take to play a 100 Tests? After sifting through the statements of the 83 players who have achieved this feat till now, a few common qualities stand out: hard work, grit, discipline, and a bit of luck.

What’s the craziest thing you have done to watch a game of cricket at a stadium? Bunked classes? Stood in a line for hours? Paid quadruple the price of the ticket? Picked your parents pockets? Travelled to a different continent? -- whatever the answer may be, and however crazy it may seem, it will fall short of what a group of cricket fanatics did to watch Bangladesh’s inaugural Test against India in Dhaka almost exactly 25 years ago.

Flurry of runs, defiant comebacks, constant rain interruptions -- what will the ICC Women's World Cup 2025 be remembered for down the line?

It took two new batters, a reshuffling of the batting line-up, a career-best T20I score from Tanzid Tamim, and Taskin Ahmed hitting a six without walking into his stumps for Bangladesh to finally cross the 150-run mark against the West Indies in their third attempt in the three-match T20I series in Chattogram on Friday.

A God, a cheat and everything in between -- Diego Armando Maradona was called it all. He was a flawed rebel, who spoke as he wished, made mistakes, owned up to some, deflected most, took everything personally, and always carried his heart on his sleeve.

While walking off the ground after the post-match presentation for the third ODI between Bangladesh and the West Indies on Thursday, Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) president Aminul Islam Bulbul jokingly told the media personnel present there, "You can't call it a paddy field today."

You’ve probably seen that image: an elephant, a fish, and a monkey all told to climb a tree. It’s often used to show how the education system unfairly judges everyone by the same test, leaving some to shine and others to feel inadequate. The image makes its point perfectly. But its lesson shouldn’t stop at the classroom door.

A pitch darker than my future, and offering sharper turn than an Agatha Christie thriller, greeted the West Indies at Mirpur's Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium for yet another all-important bilateral three-match ODI series.

Bangladesh opener Mohammad Naim's fortunes went from bad to worse to worst in a span of 72 hours.

Talent, or at least the perception of having talent, can get you a much longer leash than others in Bangladesh cricket: Tanzid Hasan Tamim’s brief ODI career so far, is a testament to it.

The series is already gone, but Tuesday’s third match will be important for Bangladesh, who are languishing at 10th in the ICC ODI rankings and have only one ODI series left to get into the top nine to secure direct entry for the next ODI World Cup.

If there ever was an award in cricket for stating the obvious after a defeat, Bangladesh ODI captain Mehidy Hasan Miraz would be up for it for the reasoning he provided following the loss against Afghanistan in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday.

Which is the bigger tournament in cricket, the men’s ICC World Cup or the women’s?

The India-Pakistan cricketing rivalry has always been a proxy war of sorts, a battle between bat and ball, which, in the hearts of fans, was a matter of national pride, where victory was an obligation and defeat unacceptable.

The weight of captaincy in any sport compounds exponentially under the bright lights of a major tournament. On top of that, if the captain has not experienced the pressure of leading in that event before, it should put them at an even bigger disadvantage.

The ACC Men’s Asia Cup -- a tournament that has been running since 1984 -- has so far witnessed 16 editions in which eight different nations have participated, three different teams have lifted the trophy, and only one country has participated in every iteration.

If the 2-0 margin of victory doesn't make it obvious, the fact that only eight Bangladeshi batters got a chance to bat in the three-match series against the Netherlands is a solid indicator of just how one-sided the series in Sylhet was.

For the record book, Bangladesh captain Litton Das' fiifty against the Netherlands in the dead-rubber third T20I in Sylhet yesterday holds some significance. With it, the wicketkeeper-batter overtook Shakib Al Hasan for the most fifties, 14, in the format for the Tigers.