Tamim Iqbal names Ravi Ashwin as one of the toughest bowlers he has faced

Tamim Iqbal, the veteran Bangladesh batsman, reckons that Ravi Ashwin is among the three toughest bowlers he has faced in his career. The Indian off-spinner has gotten rid of the southpaw four times in international cricket- two times in Tests and one time each in ODIs and T20Is. Though Ashwin doesn’t play the white-ball formats these days, he is still a bedrock of India’s Test side.

In his list, Tamim started by taking former Pakistan spinner Saeed Ajmal’s name. Interestingly, the tweaker never dismissed the left-hander at the highest level. However, the Chittagong-born feels that at his peak, Ajmal’s deliveries were extremely tough to pick.

Apart from Ajmal and Ashwin, Tamim also went for Morne Morkel, the former South African fast bowler. The lanky speedster used to generate significant bounce due to his height and got rid of the left-hander three times in Test cricket.

They are quality bowlers: Tamim Iqbal

“First I would talk about Saeed Ajmal. When he was at his prime, I couldn’t read his deliveries. I had plenty of troubles while playing him,” Tamim was quoted as saying in an interview with Daily Star.

“South Africa’s Morne Morkel was tough to face. Another one is Ravichandran Ashwin, who is one of the current players. Even he is difficult to read. I would like to take the names of these three cricketers as they are quality bowlers,” he added.

Tamim is currently the leading run-scorer for Bangladesh and is one of the three Tigers’ batters with over 11,000 runs along with Mushfiqur Rahim and Shakib Al Hasan. He has amassed 13,308 runs in 341 matches at an average of 35.11 to go with 23 centuries and 81 half-centuries. In 2019, he had a tough time due to which he also took a break from cricket.

But then he came back and smashed an unbeaten 334 in a first-class game. Prior to that, he also had a decent season for the Dhaka Platoon in the BPL. But in the series against Zimbabwe, he came into his own, churning out knocks of 158 and 128* in Sylhet. At the age of 31, Tamim has quite a few years of cricket left in him and can create more records.