From tape-ball to UAE’s fast bowler, Mohammed Naveed is a gem polished by Aaqib Javed

From playing tape-ball cricket with friends in Fujairah to the UAE team under his mentor, the bowler’s rise has been as fast as his pace, writes Paul Radley.

Mohammed Naveed was picked up from obscurity. Mal Fairclough / AFP

BRISBANE, AUSTRALIA // When Mohammed Naveed takes the new ball for the UAE in a World Cup match at one of the sport’s most renowned venues tomorrow, he will be thinking only about business.

Get the ball up there to Ireland’s opener, at a good lick. Give it a chance to swing. Attack the wickets. Show I belong.

His thoughts will not veer too far from there, but hopefully he will give pause at some point during these six weeks to contemplate just how far he has come in life.

Two-and-a-half years ago, tape-ball matches in the streets with his mates in Fujairah were the extent of Naveed’s cricket experience.

He had gone to the northern emirate from his native Pakistan, initially to visit friends, then found a job and settled there in 2006.

Those friends persuaded him he was pretty decent at bowling, and they suggested he try out for the national team.

As soon as Aaqib Javed, the UAE coach – who knows a thing or two about pace bowling – saw him, he knew he had a gem.

A diamond which needed polishing but could sparkle. When fit and available, the 27-year-old bowler has been the leader of the attack ever since.

“Initially, I played a tape-ball match in Fujairah,” Naveed said. “I was well-known there because of tape-ball cricket, I had my job there, then they said, ‘Why don’t you go to Dubai and see if you can get selected for the national team?’

“That is where it all started for me. I used to take a bus from there to Dubai and Sharjah for net practice all the time during the initial stage of my career.”

Cricket has been good to Naveed. As well as the opportunities to see the world while being part of the national team has provided, it has also earned him job security.

His performances on the domestic scene caught the eye of a cricket-loving employer at United Bank Limited, who have one of the leading corporate teams in the UAE.

He was offered a job in Dubai as an accounts clerk with UBL. He took it, but he still goes back to see his friends in Fujairah as often as time permits.

“It was because of my cricket that I got the job offer,” he said. “They saw my cuttings in the newspaper and the coach spoke to the company and they happily offered me a job.”

Naveed says his coach is his idol. It is not, as many Pakistanis might, because of Aaqib’s feats with the ball in his playing days, when he took a hat-trick against India in Sharjah and won the World Cup with the country.

Instead, it is because of the confidence he has invested in his protege, the burly, bubbly fast-bowler.

Aaqib likens the faith he has in Naveed to that which Imran Khan, the great Pakistan captain, showed in him, when he himself was first plucked from obscurity.

“It is the trick Imran used with me,” Aaqib said.

“When he saw me, I wasn’t even a first-class cricketer. He saw me with the Under 19 bunch, took me away with the national team and within a couple of months had made me think I was so big, I never ever felt pressure.

“I thought, ‘Everyone is lesser than me; I am so good!’ That was such a good feeling for me, and that is what I have tried to do with Naveed.

“You need to give them a different perspective on life and the game. Now he is looking at it differently.”

Aaqib has a theory that bowlers who have learnt the game playing matches with a tennis ball wrapped in tape are automatically conditioned to bowling fast. “It takes a lot more effort than a cricket ball, especially bowling yorkers,” Aaqib said. “When you are playing tape-ball cricket, you have to be smart.”

Naveed has a couple of aims for this World Cup, and he is thinking big. He wants to bowl his side to “two or three wins” and hit Dale Steyn for six.

If he does so, he will be doing it for two main causes: his adopted country, and his coach.

“It was the UAE who discovered me,” Naveed said. “I have worked hard to adapt to turf wickets, since I’ve been playing in Sharjah and Dubai.

“Aaqib has been my inspiration, he is my idol. I am only here today because of him.”

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