Nafees Iqbal talks about his interaction with Ritika and Rohit Sharma during his time in MI

Nafees was the translator for Mustafizur Rahman during his MI stint.

Nafees Iqbal with Shane Bond, Lasith Malinga and Mustafizur RahmanBangladesh’s newest ODI captain Tamim Iqbal’s brother Nafees also played for the national team, but couldn’t manage to reach the heights of his more illustrious brother.

However, he has played a bigger role in helping out Mustafizur Rahman during his stint with the Mumbai Indians team during the IPL, as he played the role of a translator for the pacer. He acted as a mediator between Rahman and team management.

The Netflix documentary ‘Cricket Fever’ encapsulates their failure to defend their IPL title in the 2018 season. During 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.

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In an interaction with Bdcrictime, Nafees revealed how he got the time to interact with Rohit Sharma’s wife Ritika during his tenure in Mumbai Indians and how things worked there.

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 Nafees.

Nafees revealed that Hardik Pandya had a healthy relationship with him. “For understanding Mustafizur, he interacted with me plenty of times. Even with Hardik Pandya and others, I have a healthy relationship,” concluded Nafees.

 
 

By Jatin Sharma - 07 Jun, 2020

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