Bangladesh opener Tamim Iqbal received a morale booster before his comeback to the international match against Zimbabwe when he was handed the certificate of Wisden Test Player of the Year on Tuesday.
Tamim, who missed Bangladesh’s previous series against New Zealand because of his injury, received the certificate from none other than Sakib al Hasan, his skipper and the recipient of the same award in 2009.
‘This is a very special moment for me as it is my first international award,’ Tamim told reporters.
‘I am returning to cricket after a long injury layoff and I cannot wait to take the field. This will definitely increase my confidence,’ Tamim said.
Tamim was named Wisden Test Player of the Year in October after he had scored 837 runs at 59.78 in seven Tests in 2010.
The Wisden Cricketer has reporters in every Test match played throughout the world and they award a rating out of 10 for each player’s performance in that match and Tamim has the highest average rating points for this year.
Tamim is the third winner of the award, given for the first time in 2009. Brett Lee of Australia was the first winner.
‘Although this was announced in October, receiving this very prestigious certificate on the eve of the series against Zimbabwe has a special significance. Any award inspires me to try and raise my game even more,’ Tamim said.
‘I have set up a standard for me now and I want to go up from there. In every series, I want to be the highest scorer and this series is no different,’ he said.
Tamim will go into the Zimbabwe series without any match practice but he is not worried about it.
‘I wanted to play for Chittagong in the NCL but they could not qualify for the second round. However, I had enough batting practice during in a month and I do not see any problem now,’ he said.
