After seven months, competitive cricket returned for Tamim Iqbal, but he was dismissed for just 13 runs yesterday. Playing for Chattogram against Rangpur in the National Cricket League’s T20 tournament in Sylhet, the former national team captain scored 13 runs off 10 balls. However, in his second match, Tamim showed his class. Today, he scored 65 runs off 33 balls against Rangpur, marking a strong comeback for the opener, who has been out of the national team.
In an innings filled with 8 fours and 3 sixes, Tamim’s strike rate was an impressive 196.97. This is his third highest strike rate in an innings where he scored more than 50 runs in his 265-match T20 career. In 20-over cricket, Tamim has four centuries and 50 fifties to his name. Of the 54 innings where he scored over 50 runs, the two innings with his highest strike rates were both centuries. His highest strike rate came in the 2019 BPL final, where, playing for Comilla Victorians against Dhaka Dynamites, he scored 141 off 61 balls, with a strike rate of 231.14. This remains his highest strike rate across all 264 innings in T20 cricket.
Tamim’s first T20 century came in 2013 during the Victory Day cricket, where he scored 130 runs off 64 balls against the UCB-BCB XI, with a strike rate of 203.12.
In addition to these two centuries, Tamim’s strike rate surpassed 200 in another innings in 2021, during the Dhaka Premier League T20 edition, where he scored 46 runs off 22 balls for Prime Bank against Gazi Group.
Today, Tamim started cautiously, scoring just 7 runs from the first 7 balls. He then picked up the pace, hitting three fours off Ebadot Hossain in the fourth over and two more off Abu Zayed in the following over. In the eighth over, he hit a four off Mahfuzur Rahman to bring up his fifty in 27 balls. After reaching fifty, he followed up with two consecutive sixes over long-off and long-on.
Tamim’s innings came to an end in the 11th over when he tried to hit another six but was caught by Khaled Ahmed at long-off. At the time of his dismissal, Chattogram had scored 106 for 4 in 10.2 overs. Due to fog delaying the start, the match was shortened to 15 overs, and in the end, Tamim’s team posted a total of 145 runs for 9 wickets.
