Nazmul Hassan Shanto, the prolific opener of Bangladesh cricket team began to play when he was a boy of ten.
It was in 2008, 10-year-old Najmul Hossain Shanto began to play with street-cricket in front of his house with one of his neighboring friends.
Munnu, a volleyball player of Rajshahi used to visitJahangir Alam Ratan, father of Shanto for a business purpose.
Munnu overwhelmed by watching the batting practices of a 'little' Shanto and he advised his father to admit Shanto in Rajshahi Cricket Academy. Shanto's father was indecisive. He lives in a rural area and the Cricket Academy is 20 kilometres away from his home. But, Munnu continued to insist and managed to agree Jahangir Alam to admit Shanto to the Cricket Academy.
And thereafter Shanto continued to fulfill his dream to become a cricketer from the remote Ranohat village under Paba Upazila of Rajshahi. Shanto is now a player among 15 World Cup teams from Bangladesh. Bangladesh envisions watching an extraordinary performance in the batting of Shanto.
Volleyball player Munnu admitted Shanto under the supervision coach of the Cricket Academy, Jamilur Rahman Saad. Later, Golam Rabbani Hemel and Rafiqul Islam acted as the coach for Shanto.
Both the coaches trained Shanto up to the standard of an expert cricketer. Shanto made an unprecedented successful batting in the U-14 competition held in 2010. Later, he also played in the U-15 Challengers Trophy held at BKSP under the Jatiya Cricket Board in 2012. For his extraordinary performance, he was selected as a cricketer to play U-15 Tourney in India. He scored a century in the tournament. Later, in the Divisional Cricket Tournament of 2015, he scored a double century in a match and scored 196 in another match. The next year, he played in the U-19 World Cup Cricket.
In 2016, Shanto played in the Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) for Cumilla Victorians. The next year, he with Mijanur Rahman scored a record 341 runs for the Rajshahi division against Dhaka Metropolis in the National Cricket League.
In 2017-'18 Shanto was the highestscorer of the tournament in the Dhaka Premier Division Cricket League. On January 20, 2017, Shanto made his international debut with playing Test against New Zealand, then he played his first match in ODI against Afghanistan in 2018 and in September 2019 he played in the T-20 cricket against Zimbabwe. Shanto scored 1283 runs in 23 Tests, 967 runs in 31 ODI and 566 runs in 25 T-20 cricket for the national team.
Jahangir Alam, father of Shanto said, “I have no idea about the sports. During the childhood of Shanto, our village was situated in a remote, isolated place.
There was no road. My 10-year-old son Shanto used to travel 40 kilometres by a bicycle to go tocricket academy daily.
He had to attend his school till noon and then went to the cricket academy and returned home in the evening. From early childhood, Shanto was intelligent and extremely disciplined. I envisioned a spirit in Shantoof turning a great at that period.
Golam Rabbani Hemel, coach of Shanto informed, “His extra-ordinary batting drew our attention. From that period, we believed that Shanto would play at the top level in the near future.”
Rafiqul Islam, another coach of Shanto said, “Shanto is very industrious and he is unlike others. He was always interested in sports. He had to surpass many limitations. He was committed to establish himself as a good sportsman.”
