Shakib up close

Tell us a bit about how it all began for you

Well I never really wanted to become a cricketer. It was only when I started touring and getting success that I thought this wasn’t too bad! I am a late starter and didn’t hold a proper cricket ball until I was about 14-15. I come from a sporting family. My father had represented Khulna Division in football and one of my cousins is also a Bangladesh international and it was only natural for me to kick the ball around and I had participated in many tournaments for boys under the height of 4 feet 10 inches. I used to play taped-tennis ball cricket in Magura and sometimes I would go into the villages with local kids to play matches on hire. It was during one of those games that I was spotted by Saddam Hossain, an umpire from our district and he asked me to come to the trial of his club team Islampur Para which played in the Magura League. I went to their nets and bowled pace for a while and then switched to spin and found that it was more effective. I was picked for the club straightaway.

You see I am a very competitive person. For example, when Rocky (Raqibul Hasan) got the man of the match award in the second ODI against Zimbabwe I kept telling myself ‘Shakib, you moron, you could have been up there today. You blew your chance’. Don’t get me wrong, I am so happy to see Raqibul, Mushfique, Mehrab (Hossain Jr), Tamim (Iqbal) and the others performing and I am so proud of them because we have grown up as cricketers together. For me the cricket ground is a place to show my worth. I go out to field as if I’m entering the boxing ring and there’s no place for the guy who comes second best there