103: Shakib Al Hasan

102: Nathan Lyon >>>

57 matches. 210 wickets @ 31.2. Strike rate: 62.17. 18x 5wi.

15 years. 3x good. 3x excellent. 2x outstanding.

The discussion

How do you rate a player like Shakib?

It is very difficult to put local outliers in a wider context, and Shakib is an outlier for Bangladeshi cricket. By far the greatest player the country has ever produced, his international performances have been incredible when you think about the fact that he often did not have a high-quality strike bowler at the other end. So therein lies the conundrum — at what point does having a quality strike bowler at the other end start helping your record, and when does it start to hurt it?

At one end of the spectrum, we have players like Shakib and Murali — guys who played the majority of their careers without serious firepower in the bowling unit. Although Chaminda Vaas was a quality medium-fast bowler, he is not the kind of player that made anyone want to get up the other end to face Murali. And Shakib has not even had Vaas levels of assistance during his career.

We must also remember that Shakib does not play against his own side. Like Zimbabwe's Andy Flower, Shakib has had to consistently play against higher-ranked opposition, which suggests he has not had much chance to feast on the statistically weaker teams.

Going back to Murali, his statistics definitely did benefit from bowling a LOT of overs without a superstar at the other end chipping in with bags of wickets. As we will discuss further in other Hall of Fame profiles, when analysing two or more quality bowlers from the same side, you will often find they have great averages, but relatively few 5wi and 10wm. They take enough wickets as a pair or group that one rarely dominates to the extent that they get bags of wickets. Whereas someone like Shakib finds himself at 13th in 5wi per 100 innings of all the players considered for the Hall — a very impressive stat.

But does a lack of a high-quality supporting cast also hurt his statistical case? You could make an argument that Shakib's record would be better with a partner at the other end. Having a quality ally (think Glenn McGrath for Shane Warne) would afford Shakib the opportunity to maintain greater pressure and have more attacking plans knowing that he does not have to keep it tight and take all the wickets. Which side of the fence you fall on in this debate could drastically alter your rating of a player like Shakib.

Analysing Shakib’s career also provides the perfect opportunity to introduce the concept of plus/minus for all-rounders, which is something you will become familiar with as we progress through our Hall of Fame. Plus/minus is essentially the difference between the batting average and bowling average for any player. It is a crude measure, but a reasonably effective way of measuring the relative batting and bowling average for an all-rounder. A positive plus/minus is the mark of a pretty good cricketer - consider a player who averages 35 with the bat and 35 with the ball at Test level. It is fair to assume they would be a decent chance to get a spot in a reasonable test XI batting at 6/7 and operating as a fourth bowling option. The great all-rounders have a decent positive +/-, but it is rarer than you think. Let us look at all Test cricketers with 2000 Test runs and 150 Test wickets. There is a nice number here, just 25, including 14 Hall of Famers. Check out the plus/minus:

Plus/Minus of all Test cricketers with 2000+ runs and 125+ wickets (as at 20 July 2021)

Source: ESPN CricInfo

Yep - just 12 with a positive plus/minus. Shakib is 6th on the list, ahead of: Botham, Hadlee, Kapil Dev, Wasim, Richie, Warnie, Stuart Broad and Anil Kumble. That alone gives weight to Shakib’s case for inclusion.

But one stat does not a Hall of Fame case make. [1]

The verdict

Shakib’s teammates and the era of Bangladeshi cricket in which he has played, has so far had a net-negative effect on his legacy. He has not had enough assistance from bowlers at the other end, nor the batsmen around him to convert his undoubted skill into more match-winning (or match-saving) performances. This phenomenon is something we will touch on with quite a few players as we progress through this list. He has not had enough help to enhance his chance of taking wickets, even though he has done the lion's share of the bowling. He has possibly had enough support from his fellow batters at times, but the number of collapses for Bangladesh over the years suggests that this might not have happened often enough to pile on more runs.

Shakib is an excellent cricketer who has played in an era where he had to carry his national side almost single-handedly for over 10 years. He is an underrated cricketer – of that I have no doubt. Maybe by the end of his career he will jump a few places and finish in the Hall of Fame. [2] But for now, he is the benchmark for all-rounders — to enter the Hall, you will need to be better than Shakib.

In one word

TALISMAN

Notes

1. I may have painted myself into a corner with this one. I am almost certain I will need to make a case for a player at some point in our Hall of Fame based on a single stat.

2. Edit: Shakib Al Hasan has recently courted controversy in a domestic league match with a display of dissent and petulance that makes his case for the Hall of Fame a little more difficult.

Bio

Record

Source: ESPN CricInfo