Mohammad Nabi
The story of the rise of Afghanistan Cricket is incomplete without one player, and that is Mohammad Nabi. Nabi has done it all in his career, from playing gully cricket as a 10-year-old to playing ODIs and Test matches in the finest grounds worldwide. This Afghanistan cricketer is a terrific all-rounder who ties the middle-order together and can snare important wickets with his crafty off-spin. He can score runs for his team in difficult situations and stop the flow of runs with his bowling.
International Career
The journey of Afghanistan getting ODI status is long but eventful. It began with Afghanistan winning the ICC World Cricket League Division Five in 2008, where Nabi scored 108 runs and picked ten wickets. He was declared the Man of the Tournament for taking 14 wickets and scoring 154 runs and played an essential role in his team clinching the Cup.
Nabi was a part of the Afghanistan team, which won the 2009 ICC World Cricket League Division Three, which led to their progress to the Cricket World Cup Qualifier. However, Afghanistan did not qualify for the 2011 World Cup but managed to achieve ODI status. Mohammad Nabi’s afghan cricket career started with his ODI debut in Afghanistan's first-ever ODI, where he scored his maiden ODI half-century and helped his team defeat Scotland.
At the 2009-10 ICC International Cup, Nabi played his debut first-class match for Afghanistan, where he scored a century and took three wickets. He played a crucial role in helping his team qualify for the 2010 ICC World Twenty20. Then in 2013, ACB announced Mohammad Nabi as the captain of Afghanistan. Under his captaincy, Afghanistan went on to play the Asia Cup 2014, ICC World Twenty20 2014, and the 2015 Cricket World Cup. However, due to poor performance in the World Cup, he resigned from the post of captaincy. Post captaincy, he was promoted up the batting order, which helped improve his batting drastically.
In the first two matches of the 2016 ICC World Twenty20 against Hong Kong and Zimbabwe, Nabi was the Man of the Match and helped his team win the game. He made his test debut in the inaugural Test match of Afghanistan against India in 2018. Then in the first T20 against Ireland, he took two wickets and scored 49 runs and was awarded the Man of the Match. He was splendid with the bat as well as the ball throughout the series against Ireland. Nabi was the leading wicket-taker for Afghanistan in the 2019 Cricket World Cup, where he picked 10 wickets in 9 matches. Nabi announced retirement from Test Cricket in 2019 to focus solely on white-ball cricket.
Mohammad Nabi’s IPL Career
In the 2017 IPL Auction, Nabi became the first Afghan player to be picked-up along with Rashid Khan. Sunrisers Hyderabad bought him at his base price of Rs. 30 lakh. Mohammad Nabi played only three matches for SRH in IPL 2017 but was terrific with the ball.
In the 2018 IPL, SRH again bought Nabi for Rs. 1 crore and he took three wickets in the five matches he played in the season. He played eight games in IPL 2019, where this clever off-spinner took a 4-wicket haul. It will be interesting to see how the SRH franchise will use Nabi’s services in the future. You can look into the batting and bowling stats for Mohammad Nabi throughout the IPL.
Batting
| Versus | M | Inns | NO | 50s | 100s | HS | Runs | Avg | S/R | Ca | St |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delhi Capitals | 2 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 20 | 37 | 37.00 | 168.18 | 4 | 0 |
| Gujarat Lions | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |||
| Kings XI Punjab | 4 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 20 | 38 | 9.50 | 172.73 | 0 | 0 |
| Mumbai Indians | 4 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 31 | 56 | 18.67 | 127.27 | 1 | 0 |
| Royal Challengers Bangalore | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 4 | 4.00 | 133.33 | 0 | 0 |
| Overall (5) | 13 | 10 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 31 | 135 | 15.00 | 148.35 | 5 | 0 |
Bowling
| Versus | O | M | R | W | 4w | Best | Avg | S/R | E/R |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delhi Capitals | 8 | 0 | 50 | 2 | 0 | 2/21 | 25.00 | 24.00 | 6.25 |
| Gujarat Lions | 3 | 0 | 17 | 0 | 0 | - | - | - | 5.67 |
| Kings XI Punjab | 12.5 | 0 | 122 | 1 | 0 | 1/28 | 122.00 | 77.00 | 9.51 |
| Mumbai Indians | 15 | 0 | 73 | 4 | 0 | 1/13 | 18.25 | 22.50 | 4.87 |
| Royal Challengers Bangalore | 6.2 | 0 | 37 | 4 | 1 | 4/11 | 9.25 | 9.50 | 5.84 |
| Overall (5) | 45.1 | 0 | 299 | 11 | 1 | 4/11 | 27.18 | 24.64 | 6.62 |
Fielding
| Catches | 5 |
| Most Catches in Match | 2 |
T20 Franchise Career of Mohammad Nabi
What is the connection between Twenty20 franchise tournaments like Bangladesh Premier League, the Big Bash League, the Pakistan Super League, the Vitality Blast, the Indian Premier League, the Afghanistan Premier League and the Caribbean Premier League? It's Mohammad Nabi, who has played in all these tournaments.
- Nabi played in the Bangladesh Premier League for the first time in 2013. He was picked-up by Sylhet Royals, where he was the leading wicket-taker for the team by picking 18 wickets.
- Then in the 2015 edition of the Bangladesh Premier League, he was selected by the Rangpur Riders. He ended up taking seven wickets and scored 37 runs.
- The 2016 edition of Bangladesh Premier League was successful for Nabi as he picked 19 wickets for the Chittagong Vikings and scored his maiden BPL half-century.
- In the 2017 BPL tournament, he was picked up for the Comilla Victorians and then for Rangpur Rangers in the 2019-20 edition.
- In the 2016 Pakistan Super League, Nabi played for the Quetta Gladiators before leaving in the middle of the tournament to play the 2016 Asia Cup Qualifier.
- In the first edition of the 2018 Afghanistan Premier League, he played for Balkh's squad.
- In the 2018 T20 Blast, Nabi played for Leicestershire County Cricket Club, where he scored 86 runs from just 32 balls to take his team to victory against Lancashire.
- The Kent County Cricket Club signed him for 2019 and 2020 T20 Blast.
- Nabi played for Melbourne Renegades in the 2017 and 2018 Big Bash League. He hit the winning runs in the 2018 Big Bash League against the defending champions Adelaide Strikers.
- Nabi got selected for the 2020 Caribbean Premier League under the St Lucia Zouks squad. Then in August 2020, he took his first T20 five-wicket haul in the match against St Kitts & Nevis Patriots.
Mohammad Nabi’s Statistics and Records
- In Twenty20 Internationals, Mohammad Nabi holds the record for the fastest fifty by an Afghan cricketer.
- Nabi became the first Afghanistan bowler to take 100 wickets in ODIs during the 2018 Cricket World Cup Qualifier.
- He is the first Afghanistan cricketer to play 100 ODI matches during Afghanistan's tour of Ireland in 2018. You will be amazed to know it was also the 100th ODI of the Afghanistan team.