5 batsmen who turned into one-man armies for their teams

Cricket is a team or sport. Or may be not. There are instances galore of individuals rising to the occasion and saving the day for their teams single-handedly while their teammates ended up doing little. Even more are the examples of one man failing after a fight and the rest falling soon predictably like a pack of cards. Both of these underline the team’s dependence on an individual instead of the much-vaunted team effort.Let us take a look at five cricketers who emerged as one-man armies and carried their respective teams on their shoulders when the stakes had been high.

#1 Shakib Al Hasan

Portraying Shakib Al Hasan as simply the best cricketer Bangladesh has ever produced hardly does any justice to his talent and achievements. Much like Arjuna Ranatunga for the Lankans, Shakib has done for Bangladesh what more than half of his teammates could not even contemplate doing. He has been a beacon of hope amidst the gloom of lost matches, a messiah that his countrymen have always prayed for, the Tendulkar and Murali of the developing nation.

At 28, and with merely nine years of international experience, Shakib is already the second highest run scorer in the history of Bangladesh with as many as 6 hundreds and 30 half-centuries. He is the quickest to have completed the double of 4000 runs and 200 wickets in the history of the game. Further, he is only 6 away from becoming the leading wicket-taker for his country in ODIs. In Tests, he leads the chart with 147 wickets – 47 clear of second-placed Mohammad Rafique.

All these numbers pretty much give you an idea about the kind of player and leader Shakib has been for his team throughout the length of his career. The distinction of becoming the first cricketer to attain No. 1 ranking as an all rounder in all three formats of cricket explains the reason behind commentators’ lamentation of the southpaw’s unfortunate birth in the wrong country.