Bangladesh ace left-arm spinner Abdur Razzak once again crowned his career with a unique hat-trick and a five-wicket haul in the second ODI of the five-match series against Zimbabwe on Friday.
Razzak had Prosper Utseya caught by Naeem Islam at long-on for 32 in the last ball of his ninth over and then returned to trap Raymond Price and Christopher Mpofu in front in the first two balls of his next over to complete the hat-trick.
It made him only the second Bangladeshi to achieve the feat after Shahadat Hossain, who dismissed three Zimbabwean batsmen off successive deliveries in Harare in 2006. Utseya, unfortunately for him, was the common victim on both occasions.
Razzak, who has been the main spinning option for Bangladesh for quite some time, was under pressure as he was not performing upto his potential before this series started. His performance against the Kiwis was mediocre, taking only five wickets in four matches and giving away 150 runs.
The emergence of Sohrawardi Shuvo means Bangladesh have now three equally good left-arm spin
ners to choose from, leaving Razzak’s position as an automatic choice for ODIs in jeopardy. He desperately needed a comeback and he could not have chosen the right occasion than this.
‘I almost bowled as I wanted, I did not try to york the batsman, all I tried to do was to keep ball on the stumps,’ Razzak said at the post-match press briefing.
The hat-trick and five-wicket haul, the third in his career and a feat achieved by no other Bangladeshis, made him the only left-arm spinner in the world to achieve a hat-trick.
‘I never had any target set for myself of having a certain numbers of wickets and I never try to think about records and stuff while I am playing, all I think about when I am in a match is to perform well for myself and for my team, so that I get picked for the next match,’ said Razzak, the leading wicket-taker for Bangladesh with 158 victims in only 109 ODIs.
