Son ready to follow in father’s footsteps

At the age of 41, Afghanistan all-rounder Mohammad Nabi is nearing the end of his playing career.

The right-handed batter and off-spinner has seen it and done it all at the professional level, representing his country with distinction and turning out for a host of teams in franchise cricket across the world.

Already retired from Test cricket in order to prolong his limited-over career, the veteran cricketer has captained his nation in both the Cricket World Cup and T20 World Cup, and earned a permanent place for himself in the annals of Afghan cricket. The experienced campaigner is his country’s highest run-scorer in Twenty20 Internationals, and second highest in One Day Internationals, while with the cherry, he is the second highest wicket-taker in both 20- and 50-over cricket.

Now, Nabi is ready to pass on all the knowledge accrued over the course of his long and distinguished career to his 19-year old son, Hassan Eisakhil, the uncapped opening batter.

Only one other father and son duo played international cricket together and keeping this in mind, Nabi pushed back his limited-over retirement, so that he could feature with his son for Afghanistan, and make another slice of history in the process.

"It's my dream. Hopefully we can do it. He (Eisakhil) is doing very well,” Nabi said of his son, who has played for the Afghans at the Under-19 World Cup, last year. “He is a hard worker and I'm also pushing him to do work. I want him to make his own goals, if you want to get to be a high-level cricketer, you have to work hard. It’s not enough to make 50 or 60, you have to score 100-plus. He’s listening and pushing all the time. When he can talk to me, I try to give him advice to give him confidence for the game.”

Bashundhara Cement Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) side Noakhali Express provided a glimpse of how that would look like as they recruited the father-son duo for the ongoing edition.

Following his exertions in the International League (IL) T20, Nabi joined Eisakhil in Sylhet where the father played four matches for Noakhali while the son is yet to get a game.

Having got the golden chance to be alongside his son in a competitive tournament, Nabi fully utilised the opportunity, guiding Eisakhil in training, and teaching him the finer details of the game. A rare sight indeed.

During one of the training sessions, Nabi was seen giving his son throwdowns with a bowling stick and after each delivery, pointed out to Eisakhil what went wrong, or simply appreciated him for playing a good shot.

By the look of things, it would have seemed to anyone who was watching that Nabi maybe a loving father but was carrying out his duty as the strict parent. Perhaps Nabi knows best, hard love might just be what Eisakhil needs as he looks to prolong his embryonic career.