Left-handed Bangladeshi opener Imrul Kayes announced his retirement from Test and first-class cricket. The 37-year-old played his last Test in 2019 against India (the first-ever day-night Test played in India), played 39 Test matches for Bangladesh, and scored 1797 runs at an average of 24.28. 

His impressive performances in the 2007-08 National Cricket League and the Academy tour of Sri Lanka saw him play for the national team just one and a half years after his array in domestic cricket. 

In first-class cricket, he has scored 7859 runs at an average of 33.73. His last red-ball game will be against the Dhaka division in the Khulna Division’s National Cricket League. However, he hasn’t announced his retirement from white ball cricket. 

Kayes’s career at the highest level revolves around his opening partnership with Tamim Iqbal, as they make the most prolific opening pair for Bangladesh in Test cricket by some distance. They have scored 2336 runs together in 53 innings at an average of 45.80, with the next-best pair scoring only 665. 

Iqbal and Kayes’s memorable partnerships  included a 185-run opening stand at Lord’s in 2010, and a world record 312 against Pakistan in Khulna in 2015. Kayes has overall four 50s and three centuries in Test cricket. 

Kayes has also played 78 ODIs and 14 T20Is for Bangladesh, averaging 32.02 and 9.15 in both the white ball formats respectively. 

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