Auqib Nabi made his Ranji Trophy debut in January 2020, just before Covid struck, and the pandemic cost him two good years away from top-level action. He is one of the pace bowlers starring for Jammu and Kashmir at Hubballi this week as they chase their first Ranji title — shaped, like the rest of this team, by Irfan Pathan’s coaching in conditions no other domestic side would have experienced. Irfan Pathan arrived as coach in the 2017-18 season and stayed until the deteriorating security situation forced him to leave for his own safety in 2019. He insisted on four-to-five months of fitness and skills camps — not just ten days before the season, as had been the custom — but the squad ran into a roadblock peculiar to India’s northernmost state. Fazil Rashid, a key part of that squad, recalls those torrid times. Getting 25 probables to assemble at one spot required a gargantuan effort. “This was around the 2018-19 season, when there had been a big attack in Kashmir. Team ko nikaalne mein …