A month before India Test, Afghan captain sends spin challenge

New Delhi, May 15

Afghanistan captain Asghar Stanikzai believes the ‘world-class’ spinners in his team will pose a serious challenge to the much-vaunted Indian batting line-up in the historic one-off Test in Bengaluru from June 14.

Afghanistan will make their much-awaited Test debut at the Chinnaswamy Stadium and Stankizai said the aim is to give a good fight to India, who will be without their regular skipper Virat Kohli.

“With or without Kohli, India are a top side and even stronger at home. Kohli is a very big player and we would have enjoyed playing against him,” Stanikzai said.

“Irrespective of who is playing, everyone knows how tough it is to face India in India. It will be a great learning experience but we are surely not overawed by the challenge. We will be playing to win. We have world-class spinners in our team and they can trouble India.” Afghanistan are currently training in Greater Noida but would be travelling to Dehradun later this week. They face Bangladesh in a three-match T20 series next month.

While coach Phil Simmons has stressed on making his team mentally and physically ready for the five-day challenge, Stanikzai feels adjusting to the Test mode from four-day cricket will not be much of an issue. “We would like to learn from their players and they can learn from ours. Yes we are playing our first Test but we are going into the game with enough first-class experience. We play about 10 four-day games in a year and have won the ICC Intercontinental Cup twice. Tests will be different obviously but I would not say that there is a huge difference,” said the veteran of 86 ODIs and 51 T20s.

The team’s key players — spinners Rashid Khan and Mujeeb Zadran, and all-rounder Mohammad Nabi — are currently playing in the IPL. Rashid has evolved into a top-quality leg-spinner and a few others, including Mujeeb, Zahir Khan and Qais Ahmed, too are improving rapidly. — PTI