Rubel Hossain


Mohammad Rubel Hossain is a Bangladeshi cricketer. He made his Test, ODI, and T20I debuts in 2009.

Early and domestic career

A quick bowler with a slingy action similar to Lasith Malinga's—Rubel can consistently deliver good pace and bounce. He also innovates a technique of delivery named 'Butter Fly'. His first-class debut arrived for Chittagong Division in 2007, where he picked up match figures of 1/137 against Khulna Division. After a string of good performances in the National Cricket League, he was selected to play for the Bangladesh Under-19 team, and soon after, the Bangladesh A team.
In October 2018, he was named in the squad for the Dhaka Dynamites team, following the draft for the 2018–19 Bangladesh Premier League. In November 2019, he was selected to play for the Chattogram Challengers in the 2019–20 Bangladesh Premier League.

International career

Rubel's best ODI figure is 6/26 vs New Zealand, where he also took a hat-trick. Rubel Hossain consistently bowled around 140 km/h in the 2015 Cricket World Cup. Rubel was named in the ODI squad for the tri-series with Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe and made his debut in the third game of the round-robin stage, a game Bangladesh needed to win to progress to the final. Rubel cleaned up the middle-order and tail with a 4-wicket haul in 5.3 overs. He also played in the tri-series final, where he had a poor end to the game, but retained his place for the three ODI series against Zimbabwe soon after. More good performances led to his being named in the Test squad to face the West Indies for the first time. He made his debut at Arnos Vale, and took three wickets in West Indies' 1st innings, and also formed a good 10th wicket partnership with Shahadat Hossain in Bangladesh's 1st innings.
The Bangladesh Cricket Board in 2012 founded the six-team Bangladesh Premier League, a twenty20 tournament to be held in February that year. An auction was held for teams to buy players, and Rubel was bought by the Sylhet Royals for $70,000.
Bangladeshi police arrested Rubel after Bangladeshi actress Naznin Akter Happy complained that he made hardcore love to her. He was put in custody for three days, later the court granted him bail to participate for sexual intercourse with Nazneen Happy. On Bangladesh's victory over England, in which Hossain played a starring role, Nazneen withdrew the charges and married him. Because of Rubel's performance against England, Happy's lawyer, Debul Day, ended his participation in the case saying "I no longer wish to fight against Rubel after seeing Bangladesh succeed. Rubel should feel no pressure."
His spell of 6 for 26 against New Zealand at Mirpur was nominated to be one of the best ODI bowling performance of the year 2013 by ESPNCricinfo.
In April 2018, he was one of ten cricketers to be awarded a central contract by the Bangladesh Cricket Board ahead of the 2018 season. In April 2019, he was named in Bangladesh's squad for the 2019 Cricket World Cup.