Mohammad Nafees Iqbal Khan ( bn, মোহাম্মদ নাফিস ইকবাল খান; born 31 January 1985), better known as Nafees Iqbal, is a former Bangladeshi international

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by str ...

er. He played as a right-handed opening batsman, and was a part-time right-arm medium pace bowler.

Biography

Nafees Iqbal Khan was born to footballer Iqbal Khan and mother Nusrat Iqbal Khan, in the port city of Chittagong. His paternal '' Khan'' family is a prestigious family in the city, migrated from

Bihar Bihar (; ) is a state in eastern India. It is the 2nd largest state by population in 2019, 12th largest by area of , and 14th largest by GDP in 2021. Bihar borders Uttar Pradesh to its west, Nepal to the north, the northern part of West ...

. Nafees Iqbal is the elder brother of

Tamim Iqbal Tamim Iqbal Khan (Bengali: তামিম ইকবাল খান; born 20 March 1989), more popularly known as Tamim Iqbal, is a Bangladeshi cricketer. He is the nephew of former Bangladesh skipper Akram Khan, the current chief selector of ...

and the nephew of former

Bangladesh Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million people in an area of . Bangladesh is among the mos ...

captain Akram Khan, who both played Test cricket for Bangladesh.

Career

He represented Bangladesh U19 team in youth level and captained the national side at the

2002 Under-19 Cricket World Cup The 2002 Under-19 Cricket World Cup was played in New Zealand from 19 January to 9 February 2002. A total of 16 sides competed in the tournament with Australia defeating South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (R ...

. He rose to limelight and prominence after scoring a hundred (118 off 168 balls) for

A against the touring

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

team in 2003–04 and he was disparaging towards the England spinners which he faced, commenting their spinners as "ordinary". His comments drew more press attention than his batting. He also played for Bangladesh during the

2004 ICC Champions Trophy The 2004 ICC Champions Trophy was held in England in September 2004. Twelve teams competed in 15 matches spread over 16 days at three venues: Edgbaston, The Rose Bowl and The Oval. The nations competing included the ten Test nations, Kenya (ODI ...

. His only Test century came in January 2005, one which aided Bangladesh towards their first-ever series victory, 1–0 against

Zimbabwe Zimbabwe (), officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country located in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the south-west, Zambia to the north, and ...

. However he couldn't achieve better milestones like his brother Tamim Iqbal during his short playing career and was dropped from the national team in 2006 following a string of poor scores. His last international match came in April 2006 which was a test match against Australia. In 2020, one of the friends of Nafees Iqbal revealed that Tamim Iqbal's success was primarily due to the sacrifice of his older brother Nafees. In 2016, he was appointed as team manager of

Khulna Titans Khulna Tigers ( bn, খুলনা টাইগার্স) are a franchise Twenty20 cricket team representing the Khulna division in the Bangladesh Premier League (BPL), a Twenty20 cricket tournament. The franchise was owned by Gemcon Sports a ...

in the Bangladesh Premier League. Nafees was recruited in by the management team of the Mumbai Indians for the

2018 Indian Premier League The 2018 season of the Indian Premier League, also known as IPL 11, was the eleventh season of the IPL, a professional Twenty20 cricket league established by the BCCI in 2007. The season, which was held from 7 April to 27 May, saw the return o ...

season as a translator for his fellow Bangladeshi seamer Mustafizur Rahman. His role as a translator was also credited in the 2019 Netflix original webseries '' Cricket Fever: Mumbai Indians''.

Personal life

He is the elder brother of cricketer

and the nephew of former cricketer Akram Khan. On 20 June 2020, he was reportedly tested positive for

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. The disease quickly ...

and has been kept in self isolation at his residence in Chittagong.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Iqbal, Nafees 1985 births Living people Bangladeshi cricketers 21st-century Bangladeshi cricketers Bangladesh One Day International cricketers Bangladesh Test cricketers Chittagong Division cricketers Brothers Union cricketers Bangladesh East Zone cricketers Khelaghar Samaj Kallyan Samity cricketers Khan cricketing family Bangladeshi Sunni Muslims Bangladeshi people of Bihari descent 21st-century Muslims People from Chittagong