The summer of 2010 that defined Tamim

Ask anyone following Bangladesh cricket about the earliest memory involving Tamim Iqbal and the most common answer will be the southpaw, then aged 17, dancing down the wicket and thumping Zaheer Khan over long-on, "showing little respect to the elder statesman". With that innings, Tamim emerged as a fearsome ball-striker and many started comparing him with his Asian counterparts - Virender Sehwag and Sanath Jayasuriya. 

But for a long time, it seemed a one-off as he could not really crack the code of scoring big against big teams. He needed performances against bigger, more recognised sides for international reckoning. It was in 2010 when Tamim really took the cricketing world by storm.

The then Bangladesh coach Jamie Siddons in that year said Tamim had " the makings of a world-class opener". In March that year, Tamim hit 86 off 124 against Alastair Cook's England in Chattogram and in the process became the fastest Bangladesh batter to score 1000 Test runs. 

Tamim followed it with two more rapid fifties in the Test series and finished the ODI series as the third-highest run-getter with a century. 

Let's go back to the Chattogram Test where Tamim hit 86. He was striking the ball sweetly and all around the park. Kevin Pietersen was sledging him during that knock. "It's easy to hit here, but come to Old Trafford and see the fun," Pietersen was said to have told Tamim.

Bangladesh were in England for a reverse tour a few months later. During that visit, Tamim was once watching TV and he heard Geoffrey Boycott question Bangladesh's Test status. It angered Tamim and he wanted to do something.

He asked an attendant if there was an honours board for batters scoring fifties at the Lord's (as he scored 55 in the first innings) and the reply was "no". Tamim promised not to leave the ground with a hundred.

What followed was extraordinary. Tamim took the attack to a bowling attack that had James Anderson, Tim Bresnan, Steven Finn and Graeme Swann. He raced to his hundred in just 94 balls, the fastest hundred at the Lord's since Mohammad Azharuddin in 1990. 

But another challenge was left. He had to show Pietersen and England he had the game to take on the bowlers at the Old Trafford, England's fastest wicket. In the first innings of the second Test, Tamim was in his elements again, smashing 108 off 114 balls.

"I have never seen a batter taking on the England new ball bowlers like Tamim, not even Virender Sehwag. He hit England bowlers in India, but he could never do so coming in England," said the then Wisden editor Scyld Berry, who selected him as the Wisden Test player of the year 2010 ahead of Swann and Sehwag. He was earlier named one of the Wisden Cricketers' Almanack's four players of the year.

During the qualifying period, Tamim scored 837 runs in seven Tests at an average of 59.78. 

The 2010 summer really made him take off as he was elevated to vice-captaincy in December. 

That incredible summer had a long-lasting impact as Tamim was selected as one of the players for the Rest of the World side in the Bicentenary celebration match at the Lord's in 2014.

Tamim received a Lord's recall in 2018 when a T20I was arranged there between the West Indies and the Rest of the World. Tamim was part of the World XI when a T20 series was hosted in Lahore in the form of Independence Cup as a security  litmus test in Pakistan. 

Whenever Tamim visited England with Bangladesh (mostly during ICC events), he received a lot of media attention and he backed it up with performances. In 2017, he scored a hundred against England at the Oval in the Champions Trophy followed by a magnificent 114-ball-95 against Australia. 

Despite all these big performances, Tamim could not tour England for a series against them since 2010. When Bangladesh were at Chelmsford in Essex in May to play an ODI series against Ireland, ESPNCricinfo journalist Andrew Miller wrote, "The career of Tamim Iqbal, though formidable in its own right, has been denied a return to the stage on which he briefly shone like few batters before him."

History says Tamim played well when he was under pressure. He hit back with four consecutive fifties after being initially dropped from the probable squad for the Asia Cup 2012. He showed Boycott and Pietersen that someone from Bangladesh actually could actually go after England. Many believed there was one last comeback left in Tamim. But Tamim believed otherwise. He left the game without fulfilling "one last dream" - winning a trophy for Bangladesh.