A Dubai schoolboy will begin the qualifying process for the next T20 World Cup this week, a few months after his mentor made a dream appearance at the previous one.
Graeme Cremer capped a remarkable comeback to international cricket with Zimbabwe when he played in the 20-over World Cup in India in March.
The former captain and leg-spinner had been seven and a half years out of the sport before returning to play last year.
Cremer moved to the UAE with his family and worked as a cricket coach at Legends Academy, at The Sevens, Dubai.
Now, one of his proteges at the academy has set his sights on playing against the sport’s biggest stars.
Philip Nair is part of the Greece squad at the European sub-regional qualifier in Finland that starts on Friday.
The 10-team competition is the first phase of the qualification process for the 2028 T20 World Cup, which will be played in Australia and New Zealand.
The winners of the tournament will advance to the main European qualifier next year, from which they will hope to progress to a global qualifier.
Despite the obscure setting for the pathway event, there are some familiar names involved. Moises Henriques, the former Australian and IPL star, will be captaining Portugal in the tournament.
And one of Nair’s teammates with Greece is Billy Konstas, who is the brother of Australian opener Sam Konstas.
Those players are dual-qualified. Henriques, for example, is available for Portugal, having been born in Madeira, the same island as Cristiano Ronaldo.
He has also had a sufficient cooling-off period since he last played for Australia in 2021 to be eligible to play for the country of his birth.
Nair, meanwhile, qualifies to represent three countries. He was born in Dubai and has lived in the UAE all his life, while his father is Indian.
He opted for Greece, his mother’s homeland, after they were impressed by what they saw of him in training there earlier this year.
The family went to Greece after the onset of the Iran conflict earlier this year, and he contacted the country’s cricket federation while there.
“They said, ‘Since you're here, we want to see you have a trial’,” Nair said. “I did the trial, everything went well, and they told me that they wanted me to be part of the squad.”
The Gems First Point School pupil had been encouraged to make the Greek team aware of his connection by Dougie Brown, the former UAE coach and founder of Legends Academy.
“In the last three to four months, I've put in a lot of work,” Nair said. “Because of that, I feel like I have improved massively as a cricketer.
“That’s what helped me get to that stage. Dougie asked me whether I wanted to try it. I think he saw potential.”
Nair’s first memories of cricket are of him playing in the corridor of his apartment with his dad when he was a child.
He joined the academy aged six. “I wasn't very good, but I just kept working towards it," he said.
“I didn't really take it that seriously, because I was young. I used to bowl medium pace until about a year and a half ago, when I tried out leg spin.”
Fortunately for him, his coach was a leading purveyor of that discipline. Under the guidance of Cremer, he flourished.
“Graeme coached me for about a year until he went back to Zimbabwe,” Nair said.
“That's where I got all my skills from. Through him, that's how I started bowling good leg spin. I kept drilling it, trying to improve, then became a pretty decent bowler. That’s how I got picked [for Greece].”
He said it was surreal watching his coach excelling at the T20 World Cup, where Zimbabwe caused a shock by making it through to the second phase.
“It was amazing,” Nair said. “I'm very close with him because he's good friends with my dad. I've met him a lot of times, even outside of cricket."
“I messaged him after his first game, after his return, saying congrats. It was amazing to see someone you know so well in the World Cup on TV.
“And he asked how I was doing, because he realised that I got the call [for Greece] as well.
“I try to learn from him. I message him, he messages back, and if there is anything I struggle with, he's always happy to help, which is great.”
Although he is a rookie player, finding his way on the fringes of international cricket, Nair said he takes inspiration from Cremer’s extraordinary comeback.
“I think it shows that if you really want something, then you can do it, no matter what,” Nair said.
“I really, really wanted to improve, and really wanted to try to get to a decent level at cricket. I'm just really happy that I did put in the work in and it's actually paid off.”
