Gulbadin Naib's first love in sport was amateur bodybuilding, not cricket. When he eventually did take the game up, however, he progressed quickly through Afghanistan's age-group sides as a batting allrounder and was the youngest member of the team that won the Division Five tournament in 2008 - the first stepping stone to the full world stage.

But Naib was dropped soon after, and had to deal with hardship in his personal life: his father was unemployed, his mother had hepatitis, and the family was struggling to deal with the needs of his disabled sister. Happily, Naib was able to force his way back into the national team in 2011 and settled into a floating role in Afghanistan's middle order, chipping in with both bat and ball. His maiden international fifty contributed to Afghanistan's first T20I series win over a Full Member, against Zimbabwe in October 2015. A few months later, he scored his first ODI fifty in a series win against the same opposition, to help Afghanistan break into the top ten in the ODI rankings. His biggest test came when he was promoted to captain the side for the 2019 World Cup; unfortunately Afghanistan failed to win a single game in the tournament.