Who is Auqib Nabi Dar? J&K pacer becomes overnight crorepati after Delhi Capitals win four-way IPL auction war

Better late than never is a phrase that fits Auqib Nabi Dar like a perfectly upright seam. At 29, when most fast bowlers are either firmly established or quietly being overlooked, the pacer from Jammu and Kashmir arrived the hard way, through patience, persistence and a refusal to let geography dictate his ceiling.

His journey has never followed the straightest of lines. Fittingly, neither does the sharp outswinger that has come to define him, a delivery that helped carry him to a staggering Rs 8.40 crore deal at the IPL auction in Abu Dhabi with the Delhi Capitals. For the Valley, it was a moment of validation. For Nabi, it was the culmination of years spent waiting to be seen.

Nabi hails from Kreeri, a tehsil tucked beyond Baramulla, distant not just in kilometres but in access. It is not the sort of place that can easily produce professional cricketers. Nets are hard to come by, pitches not so reliable and exposure almost non-existent. For a young fast bowler with ambition, Kreeri offered little in the way of infrastructure. What it did offer was resilience, forged by necessity.