Bangladesh ODI captain Mashrafe Mortaza’s leadership qualities came to the fore from last November, and saw his team win 10 matches at home on the trot either side of a successful World Cup campaign.

Mashrafe uses his cricketing brain to stay a step ahead of the game, reading the situation correctly more often than not. His ability to take risks, make the bold move in the field to change the game contributed to Bangladesh’s ODI success in 2015 convincingly.

As Bangladesh’s ODI captain, Mashrafe played 25 matches so far. He won 17 games and lost 8. His winning percentage of 68.00 is the best among all former Bangladeshi captains.

Plagued by injuries from the start of his career, Mashrafe had to endure several operations on his troublesome knees, work through countless hours of painful rehabilitation in order to bowl his lovely out-swingers for Bangladesh again.

Captain Mashrafe has lost some of his pace, but can crank it up a few yards when he really wants to. Nowadays, he uses his subtle change of pace, especially in one-day and T20 internationals to fool batsmen into throwing away their wickets.

The experience of over 150 ODI matches, in addition to 36 Tests makes Mashrafe more potent than before, because his control has increased many fold after the speed dropped down.

Mashrafe’s bowling repertoire includes a potent mix of slow balls, slow cutters, slow loopy bouncers, swinging ‘yorkers’ and the stock, seam-up delivery usually when the ball is new.

In 13 ODI matches this year, Mashrafe has been among the wickets in almost all the games, and captured 17 wickets at an impressive economy rate.

Considering when he brings himself to bowl in ODI and T20 matches, early on with the field up and late when the batsmen going for broke with every swipe of their blade, Mashrafe conceded a little above five runs per over this year.

The fearless attitude of our Captain Courageous has certainly rubbed off on a number of cricketers in the Bangladesh national team, particularly the new faces in the ranks.

Cricketers like Soumya Sarkar, Mominul Haque, Litton Das, Sabbir Rahman, Nasir Hossain and last but not least Mustafizur Rahman have all credited Mashrafe for his unconditional support, making them all believe in their abilities.

With the youngsters making their mark, the senior pros like Shakib Al Hasan, Mushfiqur Rahim, Tamim Iqbal, Mahmudullah and others also thrived under the leadership of Mashrafe, and have shown what a highly motivated and cooperative team can do!

Bangladesh have made the headlines, turned heads with spectacular performances, one series after another.

A successful World Cup campaign down under was followed by historic ODI series triumphs over Pakistan, India and South Africa at home.

On this day, October 5, we wish all the best to our ODI and T20 captain Mashrafe Mortaza on his special occasion.

We wish to see you in action for many, many days to come.

Happy Birthday Mash!