Tamim Iqbal becomes Bangladesh's highest run scorer in Tests

Fatullah (Bangladesh), June 13 (IANS) Left-handed opener Tamim Iqbal became Bangladesh's highest Test run-scorer after scoring seven runs on the fourth morning against India here on Saturday.

Tamim, 26, surpassed Habibul Bashar's 3026 runs, eight years after the latter retired from Test cricket. In the third over of Bangladesh's first innings, Tamim glanced Indian pacer Ishant Sharma towards fine-leg for a couple of runs to reach the milestone. He later got out at 19.

Tamim did not celebrate and the giant screen in the stadium was not working so very few spectators knew what had happened. However Bashar had arrived early in the stadium to witness his own record being broken.

"I came to the ground early today hoping to see Tamim cross my record," Bashar was quoted as saying by a sports website. 

"I told him before the Test match that I wanted to see him do it in this game. I didn't want to wait for too long. Bashar also hopes Tamim would eventually get to 10,000 runs in Test matches.

"It is good to see Tamim cross me. It was a long-standing record. I was the highest scorer for a long time actually. But I want Tamim to score at least 10,000 runs. I always thought that it would be Shakib (Al Hasan) or Tamim who would take over my run-scoring record."

Bashar played 50 Tests during his eight-year Test career, scoring at an average of 30.87 with three hundreds and 24 fifties. Tamim on the other hand has seven centuries and 17 fifties from 40 Tests.