Nafees Iqbal might not have reached the statures his brother Tamim Iqbal achieved while representing Bangladesh at the highest level. But, he made his way into the Mumbai Indians’ (MI) mega-unit as a translator for Mustafizur Rahman.
The modus-operandi within the MI camp was well-explained in Netflix Originals ‘Cricket Fever’ where Nafees acts as a mediator between Rahman and the team management.
The series depicts their journey during 2018 IPL season, where they failed to reach the playoffs in their defence of the title.
In the documentary, Rahman, with a Bengali mother tongue, is not able to understand or speak English, which causes a bridge between him and his mentors at MI, namely, Shane Bond, Mahela Jayawardena and even captain Rohit Sharma.
However, in a recent interaction, Iqbal described how he managed to bond with Rohit’s wife Ritika Sajdeh during IPL games.
IPL regulations stipulate only a number of team members and management’s presence into the dugout. Therefore, Iqbal used to receive tickets for the gallery where the family members of the players spectate the show.
“For work, I always used to be with the team. But during a match, a specific number of staff can be there in the dugout. Which is the case even in BPL. So, I used to get the ticket for the games. In the gallery, family members of the players also used to be there,” Iqbal told Bdcrictime.
“Not only Rohit’s wife, but there were also spouses of some other cricketers as well. Kieron Pollard’s family was there. We bonded into a strong group. Rohit used to respect me a lot. Since he is the captain, I used to work more with him,” added Tamim’s brother.
Also, Iqbal suggested that he had a healthy relationship with several other stars in the MI camp, namely, Hardik Pandya.
“For understanding Mustafizur, he interacted with me plenty of times. Even with Hardik Pandya and others, I have a healthy relationship,” concluded Nafees.
