Asghar Stanikzai warns India of Afghanistan’s spin resources

To play the historic Test against India, Afghanistan have picked spinners of all varieties including leg-spinner Rashid Khan, mystery spinner Mujeeb Ur Rahman, left-arm wrist-spinner Zahir Khan and left-arm orthodox spinner Amir Hamza apart from the spin-bowling all-rounding option of Mohammad Nabi and Rahmat Shah. While the limited-overs exploits of Rashid, Mujeeb and Nabi have been well recognized in various T20 leagues all around the world, Zahir, who is yet to make his ODI and T20I debut, has an outstanding record in the Intercontinental Cup. The variety in the team is enough to put the fear of God into any team and Stanikzai has warned India of the same.

The other team to have received Test status, apart from Afghanistan, in the last year’s ICC board meeting was Ireland, whose performance against Pakistan in Dublin filled cricket lover’s heart with pride. Though they started off on a bad note as Pakistan bowled them out for just 130 runs, they regrouped the second time and came up with a solid batting performance of 339 runs against one of the world’s best bowling attacks. The performance inspired Afghan players to deliver their best in the Bengaluru Test and as Shahzad stated, they will give their all to push the hosts to their very limit.

"Not just India, but even if you look at the whole world, our Rashid Khan is the No. 1 spinner. You can match him up against any bowler, and you'll say, 'yes, he's better than him', or 'he's as good as him'.

"Mujeeb, Rashid, Nabi we also have Zahir Khan, who didn't get to play for Rajasthan , but he's also one such bowler - you'll see next year [in the IPL], so Alhamdulillah we have very good spinners."