As a player, Saba Karim, currently BCCI General Manager (Cricket Operations), was unlucky not to have played more than one Test match and 34 ODIs for India in the 1990s, after he injured his right eye while keeping wickets against leg-spinner Anil Kumble in a match against Bangladesh in the Asia Cup in 2000. Even after a surgery for glaucoma when his vision didn’t become normal, the former Bengal player retired from cricket in 2000-01. At the time, he was employed with the Tata Steel Company. He later turned to coaching and opened an academy.