Pakistan handed a debut to 38-year-old Asif Afridi in their second Test against South Africa. Here's why they've turned to a player who made his first-class debut 16 years ago.
Pakistan made one change from their XI which beat South Africa by 93 runs in the first Test, brining in Afridi for Hasan Ali. Afridi is Pakistan's second-oldest Test debutant at 38 years and 299 days, and only the second player to make their Test debut after turning 38 this century.
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Who is Asif Afridi?
Afridi was born in Peshawar and made his first-class debut in 2009. A left-arm finger-spinner, he played three games in the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy that year, taking six wickets in total, but did not play again until 2015. He played three List A games and 10 T20s in the intervening years, but never found a consistent place in a senior domestic side.
Since being given another chance in 2015, he's found success in Pakistan domestic cricket. The 2023/24 domestic season was a particular stand-out. Afridi took 53 wickets at 26.56 across the season, including finishing as the second-leading wicket-taker in the President's Trophy. In his first-class career so far overall, he has played 57 games and picked up 198 wickets at 25.49. He was included in Pakistan's white-ball squads against Australia in 2022, but did not make the starting XI.
Afridi has also missed out on game time after he spent a year on the sidelines following receiving a ban for violating the PCB's anti-corruption code. Those offences included a violation of Article 2.4.10, which involves "directly or indirectly soliciting, inducing, enticing, persuading, encouraging or intentionally facilitating any participant to breach any of the foregoing provisions of this Article 2.4". Afridi served one year of his ban from 2022-23, with the second year suspended.
Why have Pakistan given Afridi a debut?
Pakistan have gone into the second Test with only one specialist seamer, Shaheen Afridi. Their spin attack consists of Noman Ali, Sajid Khan, and all-rounder Salman Agha as well as Asif. Conditions in Pakistan for Test matches have heavily favoured spin over the last year. Since their second Test in Multan against England in 2024, where they opted to play on the same pitch used for the previous game, Pakistan have only lost one game at home.
Last week, in the first Test of the series, Pakistan's seamers bowled 23.5 overs of the 144.5 South Africa batted. Hasan Ali sent down just 10. That limited workload would not be excessive for one bowler to shoulder. Thus, including a third specialist spinner and relying on Shaheen Afridi to fulfill any pace requirements is reasonable.
The other option Pakistan had was to give left-arm wrist-spinner Faisal Akram a debut. Akram, however, has only played 11 first-class games in his career so far. Fellow wrist-spinner Abrar Ahmed is also in Pakistan's squad, and perhaps the most surprising to have missed out to Asif.
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