Nafees Iqbal

A young, crowd-pleasing opener, Nafees Iqbal is not one of nature's shrinking violets. A nephew of Bangladesh's larger-than-life former captain Akram Khan, Nafees shot to prominence in the second warm-up match of England's inaugural tour in 2003-04. After slapping a giddy century for Bangladesh A in Dhaka, he dismissed England's spinners as "ordinary", an assessment that attracted more column inches than the innings itself. Had he not been about to lead Bangladesh's Under-19 team in Pakistan, he might have had the opportunity to expand on that statement in the subsequent Test series. Instead, he waited for a late summons to the one-day squad, and made his debut in front of his home fans at Chittagong. His Test debut followed the following year, and in January 2005 he produced his maiden hundred, an invaluable match-saving 121 against Zimbabwe at Dhaka, which secured Bangladesh their maiden series victory, after making 56 in the historic win at Chittagong. Indifferent form after that cost Nafees his place, and he did not feature in the Tests against Australia in April 2006: he had lost his one-day place nearly a year before, after a poor start to the NatWest Series in England.
Andrew Miller June 2006