Mohammad Nabi
Mohammad Nabi – All-rounder From Afganistan
Mohammad Nabi is a legend of Afghan cricket, the player who changed Afghanistan’s entire cricket system and helped take the national team onto the world stage. Nabi is one of the symbols of Afghan cricket’s rise from an associate member to a full ICC member.
Mohammad Nabi: Biography and Sports Career
Mohammad Nabi, full name Mohammad Nabi Eisakhil, was born on January 1, 1985, in Logar Province in eastern Afghanistan. Coming from a large family that was well-off by local standards and belonged to the Pashtun ethnic group, Mohammad spent his early years in Peshawar, Pakistan, where his family had been forced to flee to escape the Soviet-Afghan War and its aftermath. It was there, in Peshawar, at the age of ten, that he first got into cricket. Mohammad’s parents – his father Khobi Khan and his mother Zainab – had mixed feelings about their son’s new passion. Here is what the player himself said about it in an exclusive interview with the Pakistani cricket portal PakPassion:
“To be honest, I never thought about becoming a professional cricketer. It was a passion and something that I really enjoyed and it was fun. We played a lot of tape-ball cricket when I was young. I would say my family were never too keen on me playing cricket. Whenever I would go out to play cricket, I would get scolded by my mother. When we moved back to Afghanistan, the family started accepting this a lot better”.
In the end, his father, seeing his son’s success on the cricket field, not only stopped standing in the way of his passion but also helped Mohammad get proper sports training at Arshad Khan’s Cricket Academy, run by the well-known Pakistani cricket coach and former national team player. In 2000, against the backdrop of a changing political situation, Nabi returned to Afghanistan with his family at the age of 15 – already a fully shaped all-rounder, a powerful batsman and off-spin bowler.
Having gone through almost the entire Pakistani cricket pathway, he slotted into the ranks of Afghanistan’s future stars without much trouble: Shahzad, Asghar Afghan, Shapoor Zadran and others. A major push in the player’s career came from a friendly match in March 2006 during the Marylebone Cricket Club’s tour of India. In that game, Afghanistan stunned one of England’s oldest clubs by winning with a margin of 171 runs, while Nabi himself smashed 116 runs not out. After the match, MCC representatives, including head coach Mike Gatting, were impressed by Nabi’s performance, as well as by bowler Hamid Hassan, and decided to invite them into the MCC Young Cricketers program.
After finishing his training in London, Mohammad was almost immediately called up to the Afghanistan national team and became one of the few Afghan players to take part in all three of its historic debuts: ODI on April 19, 2009, T20I on February 1, 2010 and Test cricket on June 14, 2018.
A detailed breakdown of every stage of Mohammad Nabi’s brilliant career would take an entire biography, so let’s focus only on its biggest highlights:
- 2008: Key contribution to victories in Divisions Five, Four and Three of the World Cricket League, which helped Afghanistan earn ODI status;
- 2009: ODI debut against Scotland – 58 runs and the Player of the Match award;
- 2010: T20I debut against Ireland; Asian Games finalist in Guangzhou as part of the national team;
- 2013: Appointed captain of the Afghanistan national team in all formats; best bowler in the BPL;
- 2015: Afghanistan’s first-ever World Cup win, against Scotland; first ODI century, 116 runs;
- 2017: First Afghan player bought at the IPL auction, by Sunrisers Hyderabad;
- 2022: No. 1 in the ICC T20I All-Rounder Rankings;
- 2023: Afghanistan’s historic first win over Pakistan in any format;
- 2024: Became the oldest player, at 39, to top the ICC ODI All-Rounder Rankings.
On top of that, Nabi has won more than 25 Man of the Match awards in international games, as well as trophies in various leagues. He is one of the few players in world cricket history to have scored over 5,000 runs and taken more than 250 wickets across all international formats.
In March 2026, after 17 years of playing for Afghanistan, Mohammad Nabi officially announced his retirement from international cricket. The reasons were simple: age and the desire to make way for the younger generation. His farewell was marked by a particularly touching and symbolic moment: in a BPL match against Dhaka Capitals, playing for Noakhali Express, Mohammad walked out onto the field alongside his 19-year-old son Hassan. This historic father-son duo put a beautiful full stop on the player’s legendary career.
Mohammad Nabi: Personal Life And Interesting Facts
Like many Afghan players, Mohammad Nabi keeps his family life private for reasons of safety and cultural norms. Not much is known about his personal life: he is married, but his wife’s name has not been disclosed, as this is not customary in Afghan culture. Nabi has four children: sons Hassan, Reehan and Rohan, and a daughter, Emaan. In 2021, after another change of power in Afghanistan, Nabi moved with his family to Ajman in the UAE. The home ground of the Afghanistan national cricket team, Sharjah Cricket Stadium, is also located there.
To wrap things up, here is a short selection of curious facts about the player and his career stats:
- Nabi is fluent in several languages, including Pashto, Dari, Urdu and English;
- In 2013, his father was kidnapped by unknown assailants in Afghanistan for a ransom of 2,000,000;
- Mohammad is known by the nickname “The President” and sometimes “Mr. President”;
- The player supports youth development and humanitarian initiatives in Afghanistan, including through his cricket academy, Nabi International Cricket Academy.
Nabi runs social media pages on Instagram – @mohammadnabi07, X / Twitter – @MohammadNabi007, and Facebook – @mohammadnabi.eisakhil. There, he regularly posts photos and videos from matches, family moments, especially with his son Hassan, and personal messages.
| Format | Matches | Runs | Bat Avg | Top Score | Balls bowled | Wickets | Bowl Avg | Best Bowl | Catches |
| Test | 3 | 33 | 5.50 | 24 | 546 | 8 | 31.75 | 3/36 | 2 |
| ODI | 176 | 3 762 | 27.66 | 136 | 7 996 | 176 | 32.57 | 5/17 | 85 |
| T20I | 151 | 2 448 | 22.25 | 89 | 2 458 | 105 | 28.77 | 4/10 | 82 |
| T20s | 484 | 6 859 | 21.30 | 89 | 10 130 | 407 | 24.88 | 5/15 | – |
| List A | 211 | 4 766 | 28.71 | 146 | 6 973 | 224 | 31.12 | 5/12 | – |
| FC | 35 | 1 284 | 24.22 | 117 | 4 848 | 94 | 23.17 | 6/33 | 20 |
