Among Bangladesh's pace bowlers in the post-2000 era, Robiul Islam has been one of the few whose steady upswing went mostly unnoticed. It wasn't just that the media or the cricket fans remained oblivious of his performances, but many people close to the cricketing fraternity in Bangladesh only started to know him after he made his Test debut at Lord's.

Born in Satkhira, a small coastal town in the southwest of Bangladesh, Robiul worked through the league system in the region after picking up the game at an early age. Once he had made it to the Dhaka leagues, he was quickly picked up by the Khulna divisional side in the National Cricket League, the first-class competition. He began well, taking a five-wicket haul in only his second game and finishing the 2005-06 season with 13 wickets. The next two seasons weren't great but in the following two seasons, Robiul took 71 wickets and was promptly picked in the senior side.

His debut Test in 2010 didn't go to plan as he went wicketless and a chink in the run-up was evident. He worked hard on both, returning to the Test side a year later in Harare where he bowled a long spell on the second day to bring Bangladesh back into the game. But he remained a Test specialist, and his best performance coming in the first Test in Harare in 2013 when he took nine wickets in the game, taking the first six Zimbabwe wickets in the second innings.

An affable character, Robiul is known around his teammates as a guy with genuine warmth and a sense of humour. His love for the sea was evident during the team's stay in one of the Sri Lankan resorts, when he went quite far into the Indian Ocean with two other team-mates, much to the concern of the team management.
Mohammad Isam