Shahbaz Nadeem’s Brother Sacrificed His Cricket Career To Let Nadeem Chase His Dream

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Shahbaz Nadeem is one of those players who haven’t had it easy in professional cricket. He had to grind season after season picking a truckload of wickets in the Indian domestic circuit before finally getting a chance in international cricket last Saturday when he was given an opportunity to debut in test cricket for India.

Nadeem was actually not in India’s plans for this series. The Indian selectors had picked Kuldeep Yadav as the third spinner in the squad, but just a day before the Ranchi test match, Kuldeep had a shoulder niggle.

The pitch in Ranchi is traditionally a dry pitch. So, India wanted to play three spinners, along with their two mainstays Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja. Since they came to know about Kuldeep’s shoulder niggle quite late, they didn’t have time to call up any other spinner apart from Nadeem who was training with the Jharkhand cricket team and was in Kolkata which is nearby Ranchi.

So, in a way, it was a lucky break for Nadeem, but he deserved it as he worked hard over the years and did everything that a domestic cricketer is supposed to do to earn a national call-up.

The story of Shahbaz Nadeem is very interesting. His father was a police officer. So he might not have to face too many difficulties on the financial front, but his brother was also a cricketer and his father had made it clear to his two sons that he would allow only one of them to pursue a career in cricket.

That’s because Nadeem’s father didn’t want both his boys to risk their careers as there is no career security in cricket. Nadeem’s brother Assad who was already a part of the Bihar junior team then stepped aside and let his brother chase his dream. Assad’s sacrifice yielded results as his brother finally made it to international cricket.

“Assad was already captain of the Bihar under-15 side by then. But he convinced me to let Shahbaz play, as he has decided to opt out,” Nadeem’s father Mahmood was quoted saying by The New Indian Express.

Assad is now an engineer and works for a firm based in Delhi.

 

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