Mushfiqur joins the 100 dismissals club

When he showed brilliant anticipation to take two steps to his right as Sri Lanka’s keeper-batsman Niroshan Dickwella got down on one knee to sweep Shakib Al Hasan in the 60th over and then pouched the deflection off the bat to send his opposite number on his way, Bangladesh captain Mushfiqur Rahim became the 41st wicketkeeper in Test history and the first Bangladesh wicketkeeper to reach 100 Test dismissals.

As a keeper Mushfiqur has 88 catches and 12 stumpings. He actually has a total of 89 career catches, but one of those catches was taken in one of the six matches that he did not play as a wicketkeeper.

In the second Test against Sri Lanka in Bogra in March 2006, he was fielding at deep midwicket when Mahela Jayawardene pulled Mohammad Ashraful straight into Mushfiqur’s hands.

For Bangladesh, Khaled Masud has the next highest amount of dismissals with 87. Mushfiqur started the second Test at the P Sara in Colombo on 95 dismissals and added just one dismissal in the first innings when he stumped Kusal Mendis off Mehedi Hasan Miraz on the first day.

On the fourth afternoon however, as a flurry of Sri Lankan wickets put Bangladesh in the ascendancy, Mushfiqur added four catches to the list and reached the magic number.

He has Mustafizur Rahman to thank for the first three as the left-arm pacer had Mendis, Dinesh Chandimal and Dhananjaya de Silva all caught behind in a superb seven-over spell.

Mushfiqur could have reached the mark with the catch of de Silva if he had held on to a difficult chance down the leg side that eventual centurion Dimuth Karunaratne offered the previous evening when on 11.