The fist clenched in glee. The cherubic smile. The hours and hours of training. The meticulous care invested in his batting every day. These are some images and qualities from a 20-year career that come to mind when you mention the name Mushfiqur Rahim.
Through the good and the bad times, Mushfiqur has built himself into a Bangladesh legend, and is now on the cusp of becoming the first cricketer from his country to play a hundred Tests. Two decades of putting his head down, of running and batting and performing. As a measure of his pioneering presence, Bangladesh itself is only 25 years old as a Test nation and has played 155 Tests.
When any long career approaches a major milestone, it calls for reflection. To last as long as Mushfiqur has in the tough terrain of Bangladesh cricket is an achievement in itself. It's worth remembering that some of those he played alongside in his debut Test, at Lord's in 2005, are currently administrators and coaches. One is an exiled political leader.
Mushfiqur has gone from debuting as a teenager to becoming the country's oldest Test cricketer. He is the longest-serving international cricketer currently active. And it feels like he might be among the last of a kind - one of a handful of cricketers from outside the Big Three to have played a hundred Tests, joining Angelo Mathews, Dimuth Karunaratne and Kraigg Brathwaite who achieved the feat in recent years.
Together with Shakib Al Hasan, Mashrafe Mortaza, Tamim Iqbal and Mahmudullah, Mushfiqur is one of the modern pillars of Bangladesh cricket. He went to school with Shakib, is close friends with Tamim, brother-in-law to Mahmudullah, and was a favourite of Mashrafe's back in the day.
Those four are gone from the international scene, and there have definitely been moments in Mushfiqur's career when many believed he too would leave, particularly when he hung up his white-ball kit earlier this year. Instead, he has taken the speculation as a slight, responding with runs and hours of hard work. Talk to the players today and it's clear Mushfiqur is still very much on the "why" segment of the retirement spectrum and not the "why not".
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Mushfiqur was earmarked as a future Bangladesh cricketer in his early days at the BKSP, Bangladesh's top sports institute. Faruque Ahmed, the current BCB vice-president, was the chief selector who picked Mushfiqur, only an age-group cricketer at the time, in Bangladesh's squad for their maiden tour of England, in 2005.
Dav Whatmore, Bangladesh's coach in those years, remembers that handing Mushfiqur a Test debut was a big call, given he was only 16 at the time and lacked experience.
"I saw a very talented young keeper-batsman," Whatmore says. "Very young. But he had obvious ability with the bat, and after he hit a century the game before the first Test, we decided to pick him knowing it would be a baptism of fire. The one thing I recall even at that tender young age is his clear-minded preparation. I knew he would have a long career."
The series was indeed a trial by fire, for the side as much as for Mushfiqur. They were routed, and led to questions from some about Bangladesh's Full-Member status. Others believed that young cricketers like Mushfiqur were the way forward.
Faruque championed Mushfiqur, picking the 19-year-old ahead of veteran Khaled Mashud for the 2007 World Cup. When he became the youngest debutant ever at Lord's, it had piqued interest, but this step up effectively threw Mushfiqur into the big time. He was one of three batters to get half-centuries in Bangladesh's iconic win against India in the tournament. That his 56 came from No. 3 also went a long way to calming fans who were up in arms about Mashud's exclusion.
It still took him a bit of time to become a consistent performer, made all the more difficult in a team not used to winning. But alongside Tamim and Shakib, he showed enough glimpses for the selectors to begin relying on youth. When a group of top Bangladesh cricketers signed for the rebel Indian Cricket League, it heaped more responsibility on Mushfiqur and his young team-mates.
Soon after that, in 2008, Bangladesh toured South Africa. In the second Test, in Centurion, Mushfiqur gave a great account of his ability. Tamim remembers the knock, to this day, as one of his best.
"He struck Dale Steyn for two sixes and Steyn was on fire in those days," Tamim says. "Innings defeats were the norm for Bangladesh. We were touring South Africa, where we lost badly on the previous tour. Mushfiqur showed great character against one of the best bowling attacks in the world."
By then Jamie Siddons had succeeded Whatmore. Like his predecessor, Siddons saw in Mushfiqur a young batter with tremendous work ethic, but also someone who could improve. He worked on Mushfiqur's game against extreme pace and bounce, particularly his pull and cut, and on improving his backlift.
Still, those first years were tough for Mushfiqur and he was yet to truly settle into the consistency for which he became well known.
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The BCB thrust Mushfiqur into the captaincy when he was 24. Bangladesh had appointed younger captains in Shakib Al Hasan and Mohammad Ashraful but Mushfiqur was still trying to establish himself in the Test side. Less than two years later, however, he broke new ground by becoming the first Bangladesh batter to score a Test double-hundred, against Sri Lanka in Galle in 2013.
Mominul Haque, who made his Test debut for Bangladesh in that match, remembers the innings for the transformational effect it had on the team. "I think when he made that double, it took Bangladesh's batting to the next level," Mominul says. "I rate that innings as Mushfiq bhai's best knock in Test cricket. To score big runs against that Sri Lankan bowling attack, it allowed the rest of us to dream big. I remember thinking, now we can also score a century in overseas conditions.
"Mushfiq bhai made life easier in partnerships. I have personally experienced it. It is not easy to make your batting partner feel comfortable, but these are the things that very experienced cricketers do. What he does is, he talks to the batter about everything that he knows about the pitch, conditions and opposition. Only the masters of the game can do this."
The double-century was soon followed by Mushfiqur's first Test win, against Zimbabwe in Harare, although it wasn't a tour he quite enjoyed. After Bangladesh lost the ODI series, he resigned from the captaincy, only for the board to convince him to reverse the decision a few weeks later.
Mushfiqur's captaincy coincided with plenty of highs and lows for Bangladesh cricket, from 2011 to the end of 2017. They achieved their first Test wins against England and Australia, and Mushfiqur had his most productive year as a batter in the last year of that span: he scored 766 runs at 54.71, with two centuries - in Wellington and Hyderabad - and three fifties. Bangladesh also won their first Test in Sri Lanka that year.
That was Mushfiqur's first batting peak. Tamim believes it owed to Mushfiqur figuring out his best way of training and keeping faith with it. "When he started his international career, he was an okay batter for a number of years," Tamim says. "He had a lot of technical issues. He probably wasn't scoring enough runs in those days. But to be a successful cricketer, the most important thing is to understand your game, your strength, and how you are going to prepare. It can be very different to others, even more different than the most successful cricketer in your team."
Mushfiqur led the team to seven wins and captained for a third of his career, 34 Tests. He averaged 41.44 with the bat as captain, slightly higher than his career average, but interestingly did better after letting go of the captaincy, with seven of his 12 hundreds coming in that time.
The other major decision in his Test career was giving up the keeper's role in 2019. That tough call paid dividends, as seen in the improved rate at which he converted fifties to hundreds, and the rise in his batting average from 37 to 45.
In the five years starting with 2016, Mushfiqur scored 1763 runs, including two double-hundreds, and given that the bulk of that period fell after his captaincy, it shows he thrived when freed from the pressure of leadership.
He's had a similarly productive time since 2021, scoring a little under 2000 runs. This has been his busiest period as a Test cricketer; he retired from T20Is and ODIs in 2021 and 2024 respectively.
Habibul Bashar, Mushfiqur's first Test captain and a former Bangladesh selector for years, has seen Mushfiqur from up close. He believes that Mushfiqur's passion and humility, coupled with his decision to give up wicketkeeping, have helped him in his latter years
"I remember telling him about how Kumar Sangakkara gave up the gloves in Tests," Bashar says. "I think initially he wasn't comfortable, but then adjusted quite well. He could also bat in the top four or five. It is down to his passion at the end of the day."
Mominul, who with 74 matches sits below Mushfiqur on the table of most-capped Bangladesh Test players, has made Mushfiqur's mantra of hard work his own. "I think the biggest lesson that you can take from him is his lifestyle," he says. "You can have skills but you can only apply [them] as long as you have a disciplined lifestyle.
"I have never seen him eat more than he needs. Those who want to play for Bangladesh for a long time, they must look at him."
Mushfiqur has touched many lives in his two decades in the international game. He inspired a generation as a teen prodigy. He broke through as a young performer at the 2007 World Cup in one of Bangladesh's biggest campaigns, and his captaincy ushered in a strong period for the team. He has seen many eras of cricket come and go, and has withstood more than his share of criticism.
With the latter phase of his career, he has set a template for Bangladesh cricketers to follow when it comes to having a second wind and prolonging their careers meaningfully. Joining the 100-Test club is just reward for a man who has run what must feel like the iron man triathlon, and lived to tell the tale.