Rubel Hossain born January 1990 is a Bangladeshi cricketer. He made his international debut for Bangladesh in January 2009 aged 19.A right-arm fast bowler with a sling action, Rubel Hossain made an immediate impact in his ODI debut, troubling the batsmen with his bouncers and ending with match-winning figures of 4 for 33 against Sri Lanka. He began by playing taped tennis ball cricket in his hometown Bagerhat, but his talents were discovered during a pacer hunt programme where he topped the speed gun. He made his cricketing debut in 2007, against Khulna Division, for whom his hero Mashrafe Mortaza plays. That didn’t stop him from bouncing Mortaza and picking up his wicket during their first encounter at a local competition. When Hossain entered the domestic scene, there were instances of batsmen retiring hurt because of his stock delivery. His love for speed also explains his fascination for bikes
Hossain was named in the One Day International 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. He cleaned up the middle-order and tail-enders 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 name 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 first innings.
His hero is fellow paceman, Mashrafe Mortaza with whom he plays domestic cricket for Khulna Division. Rubel recorded his best ODI figures of 4/25 against New Zealand in 2010. This series is popularly known as ‘Banglawash’ as Bangladesh stunned New Zealand by an impressive margin of 4-0 in the 5 match ODI series. Rubel made his Test debut against West Indies in 2009 and took three wickets in West Indies’ 1st innings, and also stitched a good 10th wicket stand with Shahadat Hossain in Bangladesh’s 1st innings.
On 29 October 2013, he became the third Bangladeshi bowler to take a hat-trick in ODIs. He got it against New Zealand in Mirpur. The batsmen who were his victims included Corey Anderson, Brendon McCullum and Jimmy Neesham. He also got his best bowling figures (6/26) in that match. Rubel went quiet after a superb World Cup in Australia. There was a dip in his form, but that didn’t hamper his team’s performance as Bangladesh completed the troika of ODI series wins against Pakistan, India and South Africa. He continues to be part of the Bangladesh squads in the longer formats despite his high economy rate as he can trouble any batsman with his pace.
Bangladeshi police arrested Hossain after Bangladeshi actress Naznin Akter Happy filed rape charges. He was in custody for three days, later the court granted him bail to participate for the 2015 Cricket World Cup.