Afghanistan’s legendary allrounder Mohammad Nabi has announced his retirement from ODI cricket. Nabi made this announcement while receiving the “Player of the Series” award in the last ODI of the series against Bangladesh in Sharjah.
While receiving the award, Nabi said, “In my mind, from the last World Cup, I was retired, but then we qualified for the Champions Trophy, and I felt if I could play that, it would be great.”
To the ACB media team, he said, “We will see, but no, I will not play for long. God willing, after the Champions Trophy, we will say goodbye to the ODIs.”
Having debuted for Afghanistan in 2009, featuring in the first-ever ODI for the Afghan nation. Nabi has played 167 ODIs for Afghanistan, which makes him the highest-capped player in ODIs for his country. Mohammad Nabi has been with the Afghan team since the dawn of their on-the-horizon of international cricket.
Spanning from 2009 to 2024, in his 15-year-long ODI career so far, Nabi scored 3600 runs at an average of 27.48 with two centuries and 17 half-centuries. He also picked 172 wickets in 167 ODI appearances for Afghanistan, which makes him the second-highest wicket-taker for Afghanistan in ODIs.
In limited-overs games, Nabi has played undoubtedly the most important role in the rise of Afghanistan. Nabi was the captain of the team in Afghanistan’s first-ever one-day World Cup appearance in 2015 and played the 2019 and 2023 ODI World Cups. In 2019, Nabi retired from Test cricket after playing only three matches.
Currently, Mohammad Nabi is the No. 1 all-rounder in ODIs, according to the latest ICC Rankings.
The 2025 Champions Trophy will mark Afghanistan’s first appearance in the tournament, which shows that as a team, Afghanistan has come too far in terms of success. Afghanistan qualified for this edition of the Champions Trophy on virtue of their performance in the 2023 World Cup, where they finished sixth. In the Champions Trophy, the top seven teams from the last ODI World Cup feature along with the host.
