Nadeem Iqbal is probably the fastest bowler never to play international cricket, his contemporaries claim he outpaced Waqar Younis when opening the bowling with him for Multan. However despite playing some side games Nadeem never got a chance to play for Pakistan. Here he talks to PP about his new role as assistant coach of Multan region.

by Pakpassion Staff

Speaking exclusively to PakPassion.Net; Nadeem Iqbal the former bowling partner of Waqar Younis said that he was relishing his new role as the assistant coach of the Multan region.

His last assignment was as the coach of the Multan u16 side and he took them to the semi-finals of the recent Hunt for Heroes u16 tournament. They were knocked out by Lahore u16 but Nadeem said they will learn from their defeat and hopefully go a step further in future opportunities.



Nadeem is especially excited about the young talent coming through for Multan and says that he expects his region to feed even more quality players to the national team in the future. In the past Multan has produced players like Inzamam Ul Haq, Mushtaq Ahmed, Waqar Younis and Mohammad Zahid so I ask Nadeem what we can expect in the future.

I remind Nadeem that players who caught the selectors attention during the Hunt for Heroes u16 tournament are due to attend the NCA in Lahore later this month. Then I ask him which players will be representing Multan and what he thinks of their chances. Nadeem tells me that there will be 6 players sent by the Multan region and that they're all very talented, the players are...

Zia Ul Haq - Zia is a 6 foot, 16 year old left arm fast bowler. He's skinny with a sharp action and can already clock around 128-130k. Zia also hails from the same Gaggoo Club that produced bowlers like Zahid and Nadeem himself, not to forget Irfan the giant who is still to prove himself.

Shahan Akram - Shahan is an opening batsman and reminds Nadeem of Saleem Malik. Nadeem says that Shahan plays with a lot of style like Saleem used to and he totally dominates the spinners just like Saleem too.

Kumail Abbas - Kumail was Pakistan's opening bowler in the u15 World Cup but has been playing with an injury recently. He close to 6 foot tall and is a right arm medium fast bowler. Kumail's speciality is the ability to land the ball where he wants, he's got very impressive control over his line and length but he's not as fast as Zia.

M Waqar Hussain - Waqar is a wickie who opens the batting. Nadeem think he's a very good opener and reminds him of ex-Pakistani player Sajid Ali. Waqar is a positive batsmen who likes to score with ground shots. His keeping skills however are pretty average.

Mohammad Asim - Asim is a right handed middle order batsman who Nadeem feels is the best fielder in Pakistan for his age group.

Mohammad Rameez - Rameez is a left arm leg spinner and has taken lots of wickets. He's a talented bowler but his fielding needs lots of work.

It didn't surprise Nadeem at all when I told him that I'd already been told about Zia ul Haq by a few other people. He said that Zia has already generated a lot of chatter amongst those who've seen. Nadeem said that although Zia is only 16, he's very nippy and if nurtured properly he could turn out be a very good fast bowler.

Our talk turned to Pakistan's batting collapses and Nadeem wasnt too impressed by what he'd seen. When I asked him if he knew of any quality openers he responded immediately and without hesitation. Nadeem said that Afaq Raheem was the man for the job. In his role as assistant regional coach Nadeem meets lots of other coaches and people who know their cricket and he said that he was yet to meet anyone who didn't think that Afaq Raheem was a great opener.

In closing we discussed Irfan and Nadeem said he hopes that everything works out well for his former protege.