Mahmudul Hasan Joy

Top-order batter Mahmudul Hasan Joy started auspiciously, starring for Bangladesh's title-winning Under-19 World Cup team in 2020 with a century in the semi-final against New Zealand.

Born in Chandpur, south of Dhaka, Joy went to BKSP, the country's biggest sports institute, when he was seven. A year after that, he was picked in the Bangladesh Under-17s. In 2019, he struck three centuries in Youth ODIs, leading into the following year's World Cup.

After the hoopla generated by the World Cup win died down, Joy struck two first-class centuries in the 2021-22 domestic season. Two months on, he was making his Test debut against Pakistan, and a month later, early in 2022, hitting a valuable 78 against New Zealand in the Mount Maunganui Test that Bangladesh won.

In March that year, when Joy went back to South Africa for the first time since the U-19 World Cup win there, he made a maiden Test century, in Durban, becoming Bangladesh's first Test centurion in South Africa.

The runs, however, were hard to come by over the next two years. Joy struck three more fifties between May 2022 and November 2023, but then went into an eight-Test-long slump that culminated in four single-digit scores against West Indies, followed by 14 and 33 against Zimbabwe in April 2025, which led to his axing from the Bangladesh side.