25 years ago, on September 8, 2001, Mohammed Ashraful achieved a historic feat in cricket by astonishing the world with his Test century. At the young age of just 17 years and 61 days, he scored a sensational century that continues to be discussed.
This momentous match took place at the Sinhalese Sports Club stadium in Colombo between Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. In the first innings, Sri Lanka scored 555/5 runs. In response, Bangladesh lost, losing all 90 runs in the first half of the game, creating a deficit of 465 runs.
Under such difficult circumstances, Mohammed Ashraful demonstrated outstanding play, scoring 114 runs in the second half of the match. Thanks to this innings, he became the youngest player to score a century in the history of Test cricket.
Despite Ashraful's brilliant performance, the Bangladesh team could not avoid defeat. In the second innings, they were bowled out for 328 runs, and the match ended with the team losing by 137 runs.
Ashraful's achievement marked the breaking of a long-standing record. Previously, this record belonged to Mushtaq Mohammad of Pakistan, who scored 101 runs against India in 1960-61 at the age of 17 years and 78 days. At that time, Bangladesh was considered a weak team, so Ashraful's innings became a new ray of hope for Bangladeshi cricket.
In the match, Sri Lanka showed strong play: Marven Atapattu scored 201 runs, and Mahela Jayawardene scored 150 runs. For their combined contributions to the match, including 10 wickets taken by Mutaiy Murlidirna and Ashraful's century, both players were named 'Player of the Match'.
In Test cricket, Ashraful played 61 matches, scoring 2737 runs at an average of 24.00, including 6 centuries and 8 half-centuries, with a highest score of 190 runs.
In ODI format, he played 177 matches, scoring 3468 runs at an average of 22.23, with 3 centuries and 20 half-centuries, and his best score was 109 runs.
In T20 International, he participated in 23 matches, scoring 450 runs at an average of 19.56 and a strike rate of 126.40, without scoring any centuries but recording 2 half-centuries, with his maximum score reaching 65 runs.
