King of the road Nabi's nomadic journey from beating Gatting to toppling Buttler's champions

'I don’t know much about them, but I heard that some of their players picked up the game in Pakistan and played much of their cricket there. And they’re clearly useful.”

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As well documented as Afghanistan’s rise has been, from the early days of playing cricket in the refugee camps of northern Pakistan in the 1990s through to becoming a full-member Test nation six years ago, it is still pretty remarkable to think how relatively unknown their men’s team was as recently as 2006.

Mike Gatting was the captain speaking here after the MCC side the then 48-year-old was leading suffered a 171-run defeat to Afghanistan at the Police Gymkhana Ground in Mumbai. The game was added to the tour by Robin Marlar, a forward-thinking president of MCC, and for the Afghans, the Guardian reported at the time, it was the crowning glory of their fledgling international careers”.

Well, it’s fair to say that crowning glory on Marine Drive has been surpassed a good few times since, not least by events in Delhi last Sunday. And one of the neat things about Afghanistan’s eye-catching 69-run victory at the Arun Jaitley Stadium is there is a player who featured in both games.

Mohammad Nabi was not just making up the numbers the day Gatting’s array of minor counties’ cricketers came a cropper. Aged only 21, with Afghanistan still two years from their entry on to the bottom rung of the international ladder, he was the starlet who hinted at the promise of the nation as a whole with an incendiary 116 off 44 balls featuring 13 sixes, three or four of which were apparently monstrous.