Table of contents [Show]
Litton Kumer Das (born 13 October 1994) is a Bangladeshi cricketer from Dinajpur who plays for the national team as a right-handed batter and wicket-keeper. He made his international debut in 2015, completing a full set of Test, one-day international and Twenty20 international debuts within a single month, and over the following decade he became one of the central figures of Bangladesh cricket: the scorer of 176 against Zimbabwe in March 2020, the highest individual score by a Bangladeshi in one-day internationals; the highest-ranked Test batter his country has produced; and, as of late 2026, Bangladesh's white-ball captain, leading the side in both one-day internationals and T20 internationals.
As recorded by ESPNCricinfo as of August 2026, he has played 56 Tests, scoring 3,356 runs at an average of 35.32 with six centuries; 104 one-day internationals, scoring 2,869 runs with five centuries; and 122 T20 internationals, scoring 2,702 runs. His career has married rare batting talent to persistent inconsistency — he was left out of Bangladesh's squad for the 2025 Champions Trophy — but the second half of the decade has brought him the one role his talent always suggested: the captaincy of his country.
Litton Das was born on 13 October 1994 in Dinajpur, in northern Bangladesh, and has two brothers. He was educated at the Bangladesh Krira Shikkha Protishtan (BKSP), the national sports institute, where he played age-group cricket. His talent was visible early: at thirteen he represented Bangladesh Under-15s in the 2007–08 season, and he went on to appear at two Under-19 World Cups, in 2012 and 2014, averaging above fifty in both tournaments — a record that marked him out, in the judgement of many in Bangladeshi cricket, as the most promising young batter in the country.
Litton's first-class career began with Rangpur Division, the divisional side of his home region, in the National Cricket League in 2011; he has also represented North Zone in the Bangladesh Cricket League since 2012. His breakthrough season came in 2014–15, when he scored 1,024 runs at an average of 85.33 in seven National Cricket League matches, with five centuries, as Rangpur won the championship. In January 2017 he scored his maiden first-class double-century, 219 for East Zone in the Bangladesh Cricket League, and the following season he was the leading run-scorer in that competition with 779 runs in six matches, including 274 — still his highest first-class score. He was also the top scorer of the 2016–17 Dhaka Premier Division Cricket League, with 752 runs in 14 matches. As of August 2026 his first-class record stands at 7,667 runs in 104 matches at an average of 45.36, with 21 centuries.
In the Bangladesh Premier League he first appeared for Dhaka Gladiators in 2013 and later won back-to-back titles with Comilla Victorians in 2021–22 and 2022–23, before captaining Comilla to the final in 2024. Overseas, he played for Jamaica Tallawahs in the 2019 Caribbean Premier League, his first franchise league abroad; in 2023 the Kolkata Knight Riders bought him for the Indian Premier League, though he played only one match; and in 2025 he was signed by Karachi Kings for the Pakistan Super League, only for a finger injury in training to rule him out of the tournament.
Bangladesh introduced Litton to international cricket in a rush. With captain Mushfiqur Rahim carrying a finger injury, the twenty-year-old kept wicket on his Test debut against India at Fatullah on 10 June 2015 and scored 44 off 45 balls — the highest score by a Bangladeshi wicket-keeper on Test debut. His one-day international debut followed against the same opponents eight days later, in the series in which Mustafizur Rahman announced himself, and his T20 international debut came against South Africa on 5 July 2015. In March 2017, when Mushfiqur was asked to play as a batsman only, Litton took over as Bangladesh's Test wicket-keeper.
His early limited-overs career was fitful — he went 17 innings without a fifty in white-ball cricket before making 61 against the West Indies in Florida in August 2018 — but the following month he produced the innings that defined his arrival. In the final of the 2018 Asia Cup in Dubai, on 28 September 2018, he scored his maiden one-day international century, 121 off 117 balls against India, and was named player of the match even though Bangladesh lost off the last ball. At the 2019 World Cup he made his tournament debut against the West Indies at Taunton with an unbeaten 94, sharing an unbroken 189-run partnership with Shakib Al Hasan as Bangladesh chased down 322.
His most productive series came in March 2020, against Zimbabwe at Sylhet. He began with 126 not out, the first century by a Bangladeshi at the Sylhet International Cricket Stadium, and in the third match made 176 off 143 balls — the highest individual score by a Bangladeshi in one-day internationals — while he and Tamim Iqbal put on 292, the highest partnership for Bangladesh for any wicket in the format. He finished the series with 311 runs at an average of 103.68 and shared the player-of-the-tournament award with Tamim.
It was in Test cricket, though, that he built his most substantial record. His maiden Test century, 114 against Pakistan at Chittagong, came in November 2021. On the tour of New Zealand in January 2022 he scored 86 in Bangladesh's first-ever Test victory in that country, at Mount Maunganui, and 102 at Christchurch, finishing as his side's highest scorer in the series; that month he reached No. 12 in the ICC's Test batting rankings, the highest position ever attained by a Bangladeshi, and after innings of 88, 141 and 52 against Sri Lanka in May 2022 his rating of 724 points was likewise a national record. In the home one-day series against Afghanistan in February 2022 he scored 223 runs, including 136, and was named player of the series, and he was Bangladesh's second-highest scorer in their first-ever one-day series win in South Africa the following month.
His white-ball peaks continued. On 29 March 2023 he struck the fastest half-century by a Bangladeshi in T20 internationals, off 18 balls against Ireland at Mirpur, making 83 off 41 and sharing a 124-run opening stand with Rony Talukdar, a Bangladesh record for the first wicket in the format. In September 2024 he played one of the great rescue innings by a Bangladeshi: with his side 26 for 6 in the second Test against Pakistan at Rawalpindi, he scored 138, was named player of the match, and ended the series with 12 dismissals — the most by a Bangladeshi wicket-keeper in a Test series — as Bangladesh completed a 2–0 series win in Pakistan. He has remained a regular across formats since, adding Test centuries against Ireland in November 2025 and Pakistan in May 2026 and playing in the drawn home Test series against Australia in August 2026.
Litton captained Bangladesh in all three formats as a stand-in before holding any job permanently. He first led the side in a T20 international against New Zealand in April 2021, deputising for the injured Mahmudullah. In December 2022, with Tamim Iqbal injured, he captained the one-day side to a 2–1 home series win over India; he had been Test vice-captain since June 2022, and in June 2023 he became Bangladesh's twelfth Test captain, standing in for the injured Shakib Al Hasan against Afghanistan and leading the side to a 546-run win in Mirpur — the largest margin of victory in a Test match this century. In December 2024, again standing in, this time for Najmul Hossain Shanto, he led Bangladesh to a 3–0 T20 series whitewash of the West Indies in the Caribbean.
On 4 May 2025 the Bangladesh Cricket Board appointed him T20 international captain on a permanent basis, succeeding Shanto, with a tenure set to run to the T20 World Cup of 2026. Bangladesh ultimately withdrew from that tournament, held in India and Sri Lanka in early 2026, over security concerns about their fixtures in India, but in April 2026 the board extended his T20 tenure to the 2028 World Cup. Then, on 29 July 2026, he was given the one-day captaincy as well: BCB president Tamim Iqbal, now an administrator, announced a two-captain structure under which Litton would lead both white-ball teams and Shanto would continue as Test captain. He succeeded Mehidy Hasan Miraz, whom the board wanted free to concentrate on his all-round game. A calf injury kept Litton out of the one-day series against Zimbabwe, but he returned to lead the side at the tri-series in the United Arab Emirates in October 2026.
As a player, he is a right-handed stroke-maker of unusual elegance — strong through the covers and point, quick on his feet to spin — who opens the batting or bats at the top of the order in white-ball cricket and in the middle order in Tests. Behind the stumps he has been Bangladesh's first-choice wicket-keeper of the post-Mushfiqur era, and his Test batting average while keeping wicket is the highest recorded by a Bangladeshi in that dual role.
Litton's principal records, as compiled by ESPNCricinfo, are these. His 176 against Zimbabwe at Sylhet in March 2020 is the highest individual score by a Bangladeshi in one-day internationals, and his 292-run partnership with Tamim Iqbal in the same match is Bangladesh's highest for any wicket in the format. His ICC Test batting ranking of No. 12 in January 2022, and his 724 rating points that May, are the highest achieved by a Bangladeshi. His 44 on debut at Fatullah in June 2015 remains the highest score by a Bangladeshi wicket-keeper on Test debut, and his 12 dismissals against Pakistan in September 2024 are the most by a Bangladeshi wicket-keeper in a Test series. In T20 internationals, his 18-ball half-century against Ireland in March 2023 is the fastest by a Bangladeshi, and in the Bangladesh Premier League his hundred off 44 balls in January 2025 is the fastest by a Bangladeshi in the competition's history, while the 241-run stand he shared with Tanzid Hasan in the same innings is the highest partnership in BPL history and the second-highest in all men's T20 cricket. Domestically, his 1,024 runs in the 2014–15 National Cricket League and his first-class best of 274, made in the 2017–18 Bangladesh Cricket League, stand among the outstanding individual seasons in Bangladeshi domestic cricket.
The controversies of Litton's career have been about selection rather than conduct. His inconsistency in one-day cricket through 2023 and 2024 — long sequences of low scores between major innings — was a standing debate in Bangladeshi cricket, and it cost him his place at the highest level: on the morning of 12 January 2025 he was left out of Bangladesh's fifteen-man squad for the Champions Trophy, the selectors citing his prolonged poor form in the format. He said afterwards that the selectors had given him no direct message, and that the reason for his omission — his own non-performance — was clear enough from the coverage.
His answer, the same evening, became the most famous innings of that Bangladesh Premier League season. Playing for Dhaka Capitals against Durbar Rajshahi at Sylhet, he scored his maiden T20 century, 125 not out off 55 balls with ten fours and nine sixes, reaching his hundred from 44 balls. With Tanzid Hasan, who made 108, he shared a 241-run opening partnership — the highest in BPL history — as Dhaka Capitals posted 254 for 1, the competition's highest total, and won by 149 runs. Asked whether he had proved a point, he said there was nothing to prove to anyone; the decision, he said, was the selectors' to make. Earlier in his career he had also missed a major tournament in less contentious circumstances, ruled out of the whole of the 2023 Asia Cup by a viral fever on the eve of the competition.
The years since the Champions Trophy omission have completed Litton's rise from gifted underachiever to the leadership of the national side. Appointed permanent T20 captain in May 2025, he kept the job through Bangladesh's withdrawal from the 2026 T20 World Cup and had his tenure extended to 2028; in July 2026 he added the one-day captaincy, making him Bangladesh's white-ball captain in both formats while remaining a Test regular — he played in the 1–1 drawn home series against Australia in August 2026. As of late 2026, at thirty-two, he leads Bangladesh in limited-overs cricket, with Towhid Hridoy as his white-ball vice-captain, and remains the team's senior wicket-keeper batter across formats.
Litton married Devashri Biswas Sonchita, an agriculturist, on 28 July 2019, with the wedding reception held in his home town of Dinajpur. A daughter was born to the couple in November 2023.
His legacy is still being written, but its outlines are clear. He is the most naturally gifted Bangladeshi batter of his generation and, by the measures of ranking and record, the finest Test batter the country has produced; he succeeded Mushfiqur Rahim behind the stumps and set the national one-day scoring record at the crease. That he has done all this while never entirely escaping the charge of inconsistency — and was dropped from a world-tournament squad at the age of thirty — is part of the same story. His appointment as white-ball captain in 2025 and 2026 gives him the chance to define the final phase of his career on his own terms.
