Growing up in a cricketing family has its own pros and cons. More so for someone enjoying the privilege of being the nephew of one of the founding fathers of Cricket in Afghanistan – Noor Ali Zadran.

Ibrahim Zadran can certainly claim that he and his cousin Mujeeb ur Rahman have broken the Afghan prototype as they are among the first few homegrown cricketers to make the international side considering they are neither born in Pakistan nor did they learn their cricket there.

Noor was born in Pakistan and learnt his cricket there and represented Afghanistan but his story doesn’t end here as he made sure there are facilities at home for his future generations. Noor added his own cricket academy to his 2000-square-meter family farm in Khost that was built for the extended family in order to have space for guest houses, cattle, and their crop. It turned out to be the breeding ground for Mujeeb and currently the most in-form across-format batter of the national side – Ibrahim.

Both of them began their cricketing journey together after seeing their uncle representing their country in the 2010 World T20. Though Mujeeb turned out to be a household name, courtesy his exploits in shorter format cricket, it did not take long for the world to notice Ibrahim, who is considered to be the next batting superstar of Afghan cricket.

“Ibrahim is my nephew and he watched us play on TV, Playing the World Cup 2010 in West Indies and he saw me scoring a fifty against India. He was inspired by it. He had interest in playing cricket from his childhood and he started playing with softball at home with my cousins and he and Mujeeb (ur Rahman) were playing together. The most surprising thing is that both of them started cricket together and from childhood till now they moving forward together.

“Since he started playing cricket, I’ve been working with him on his batting and it continued till now because whenever I see some faults, I tell him about it. We work together to rectify it,” Noor told Cricbuzz, adding that though there was no resistance from the family, he made sure that they don’t put pressure on him when he is at home.

“There was no resistance from the family because I was a player and they have seen that playing for Afghanistan is a matter of honour. I have never let him( Ibrahim) ask his father that I need this or that because everything he required, I was giving it to him. For example if the sponsors gave me five to six bats I would keep it for him so that he can play with good equipments.

“I used to keep pads thigh guards and everything for him and I think in junior level no players have used such equipments like he did because I always used to support him and I have asked all my brothers that leave this kid to me and don’t talk about cricket with him.”

“I asked my brothers to not talk with him about cricket. Whether he is doing well or not, just tell him to do whatever he wants to do. Just chill and enjoy, cricket is not life.If it clicks it clicks and if it doesn’t it really doesn’t matter. Life is a very big and everyone supported him and even today though he is playing in the national team when he comes back home no one talks about cricket with him,” he said.

“No one speaks to him about cricket because we decided to not have any cricket discussions with him at home. I have experienced that. Whenever my family members would talk about cricket, I used to feel very bad… when I didn’t score runs, I used to get angry because I felt that I let them down. I don’t want him to go through the same thing, and that is the reason no one is allowed to talk cricket with him in whole family,” he said.

Ibrahim will be the man to watch in upcoming World Cup as he scored 605 runs in 10 ODIs that he played since 2021, including two centuries and three fifties, though Noor believes his best is yet to come.

“After two years he will be more matured. He wants to take responsibility. He is not thinking too much about himself, rather always thinking about Afghanistan. I am sure after two years he will be more responsible for the team,” Noor said.

“He( Ibrahim) is playing well and his strength is his fitness. The way he looks after his diet, gym sessions and the seriousness he puts in these things, I have never seen any player like him. I think his biggest asset is his technique, confidence and calmness and I think this is the reason he is doing well in ODIs,” he said, adding that currently Noor is working to increase his range of shots to boost his strike-rate.

“In T20, you need someone who can rotate strike for us and he is working really hard on that. He wants to increase his strike rate and that in such a manner that he can stay at the wicket as well as win matches for the team,” he said.