Today, almost every cricket fan who watched Nabi bowl two brutish deliveries to scalp K L Rahul and Karun Nair — and many more — wants the J&K pacer in the Indian team. In that clarion call, Nabi has united the country as very few cricketers with their fractured fandoms haveToday, almost every cricket fan who watched Nabi bowl two brutish deliveries to scalp K L Rahul and Karun Nair — and many more — wants the J&K pacer in the Indian team6 min readMar 1, 2026 12:51 PM IST First published on: Mar 1, 2026 at 12:51 PM ISTWhen Akhnoor’s left-arm pacer Sunil Kumar — the supporting act for Auqib Nabi in the Jammu and Kashmir team — was serving as a net bowler for Kolkata Knight Riders a few years ago, he stopped within 25 metres of his idol, M S Dhoni, but couldn’t work up the courage to speak to him. He replays a conversation that could have been in his head almost daily.For the 28-year-old who never received formal bowling coaching till he got picked for the J&K squad, watching the former India captain on TV was always instructive. “His attitude — keep your head down, stay calm and move forward — was exemplary.” That’s the path he followed as well. It’s a testament to such perseverance that, in a stacked T20 World Cup season, cricket fans were following updates on the finals of a red-ball domestic championship, rooting for J&K and referring to Nabi as a strong contender for the national colours.Over the last 20 years, passionate ex-cricketers like the late Bishan Singh Bedi, Irfan Pathan, and now Ajay Sharma have tried to nurture cricket in J&K, even as several talented players have sought to hone their cricketing skills by watching whatever was on offer on TV. Kumar built himself a pitch to train in off-season, along the Chenab. Nabi, a very good student with a teacher for a father, tagged along with his insistent friends to the trials, and Sahil Lotra and Yawer Hassan competed in talent hunts for the two best bats, which the then JKCA director, Mithun Manhas, brought from a top manufacturer.Kanhaiya Wadhwan’s father, running a medical shop, was flummoxed when his son returned home after striking a pair of triple centuries in U23 matches and sought out officials on how to go about his career. First and second innings centurions Shubham Pundir and Qamran Iqbal practised their forward defence for two years, even when their spots in the XI were not assured. When the time came, they were ready to battle, blunting Karnataka’s resolve with a straight face of the bat, paving the way for Nabi to take apart a tired batting line-up. Four- and five-day cricket is often a battle of attrition. The persevering J&K was the better team, with a greater resolve to fight.Also Read | J&K’s Ranji Trophy triumph and the new vocabulary of prideFrom impossible vision to realityMeanwhile, Manhas and Brigadier Anil Gupta took over the administration reins to ensure systems were in place, nobody was discriminated against on the basis of region or religion, and the contours of a seemingly impossible vision to lift the Ranji Trophy were in place. Three outstanding coaches in Sharna, P Krishna Kumar and Dishant Yagnik, domestic stalwarts, worked to turn vision into reality. Even T20 franchise leagues were promoted by other state associations, J&K would ask its young and equally restless cricketers to first brush up the fundamentals of cricket — four-day, season-long, red-ball, red-soil pitches, hot and humid conditions, empty stadia — before they heard the first sound of applause. Their mentors would tell them the applause had to be earned. On a glorious Friday, after the J&K batsmen had played out 1,039 to score more than 500, Nabi had scythed through Karnataka, watched by the state Chief Minister, Omar Abdullah.Across the country, fans rooted for the unfancied J&K, building up a crescendo on social media to demand a place for Nabi in the Test team. Captain Paras Dogra, an unassuming 41-year-old from Himachal, had gotten into a helmet-strikes-helmet confrontation with a substitute fielder, who had allegedly questioned his technique from short leg. Having toiled for 25 years as a journeyman, the soft-spoken cricketer was provoked when Karnataka’s close-in cordon let out its frustration. While he was rightly rebuked for the headbutt, the act shifted something in J&K fandom: it brought the state’s two bickering regions — a faultline that would once hold back the team — to rally behind the J&K captain.Jammu and Kashmir remain divided in politics. But the cricket team, by all accounts, has remained a thick unit, chasing a common goal, enduring the same struggles, united in the face of sledging by the big teams. Even as recently as the semi-final, when Nabi weaved his magic to dismiss Bengal for 99 in the second innings, there was the refrain among a section of cricket-watchers that J&K’s run this year owed to luck. However, nobody in the domestic circuit who had faced Nabi and Co. had doubts about their capability. The team, too, never stopped believing.J&K’s cricket style isn’t new — it’s vintage Mumbai khadoos batting, drilled in by a Delhi coach. It’s the gathering of talents – spinners for turning tracks, seamers for flat paatas, and unhurried batsmen, not given to ugly hoicks and batting meditatively like Test cricket — that has worked for J&K.AdvertisementThe successful team hyphenates regions bound by history and geography, proving the unifying power of cricket. Brigadier Gupta went so far as to say that even militants wouldn’t dare attack J&K cricket, from the fear of becoming unpopular.Bowling coach P Krishna Kumar had told this newspaper how he educated himself to understand the psyche of players from the troubled Kashmir Valley. “They needed to be told that the rest of India cares for them, loves them, and wants them to do well,” he recalled. Today, almost every cricket fan who watched Nabi bowl two brutish deliveries to scalp K L Rahul and Karun Nair — and many more — wants the J&K pacer in the Indian team. In that clarion call, Nabi united the country as very few cricketers with their fractured fandoms have.The writer is assistant editor, The Indian Express.shivani.naik@expressindia.com© The Indian Express Pvt LtdShivani Naik is a senior sports journalist and Assistant Editor at The Indian Express. She is widely... Read More ShareWhatsapptwitterFacebook