Bangladesh captain Najmul Hossain Shanto scored a century in both innings of a Test for the second time. Shanto made history with a par of century. He is the first Bangladeshi batsman to achieve such a feat twice.
Earlier, Najmul Hossain Shanto had scored centuries (146 and 124) in both innings of a Test against Afghanistan in Mirpur in June 2023.
Apart from Shanto, only Mominul Haque had achieved the feat of scoring centuries in two innings of a Test. In January 2018, Mominul had played innings of 176 and 105 runs in two innings of the Chittagong Test against Sri Lanka.
This time, Shanto scored centuries in both innings in a Test against Sri Lanka in Galle. The left-handed batsman scored 148 runs in the first innings of the current Test. He declared his innings unbeaten after reaching a century in the second innings.
Shanto has set several records with this century. As a captain, he became only the 16th batsman in Test history to score a century in two innings.
In the subcontinent, only five captains have scored centuries in two innings. They are Dhananjaya de Silva, Sunil Gavaskar, Inzamam-ul-Haq, Virat Kohli and Misbah-ul-Haq. Shanto now sits alongside these greats.
Three people have scored the most centuries in two innings in Tests - Ricky Ponting, David Warner and Sunil Gavaskar. All three of them have achieved this feat three times each.
Herbert Sutcliffe, Kumar Sangakkara, Clyde Walcott, Greg Chappell, Allan Border, Rahul Dravid and Matthew Hayden have each won twice. Shanto's name has been added to this short list on Saturday.
Bd-pratidin English/Lutful Hoque
