Afghanistan’s Rashid Khan feels playing Test cricket in Australia is more than a dream

One of the most popular Afghan cricketers Rashid Khan has made a brand of himself playing in various T20 leagues across the globe and his performances in IPL and BBL have given him astronomical popularity and fame. Afghanistan has taken many big steps since their debut in international cricket. From playing in the 2015 ICC World Cup and 2016 ICC World T20; the Afghanistan team finally played their maiden Test in 2018. Rashid Khan featured in Afghanistan’s debut Test against India in Bengaluru last year.

Now the legspinner is highly excited about the prospect of playing Test cricket in Australia against the home side, as both teams are slated to play a Test after the conclusion of 2020 Men’s T20 World Cup, which will be hosted by Australia from October 18 to November 15 in 2020.

The star leg-spinner admitted that being the newest Test-playing nation, it is “more than a dream” for Afghanistan to play Test cricket against Australia in Australia. “From Afghanistan, playing Test cricket against Australia in Australia it’s more than a dream. Afghanistan got the full membership and last we played against India in India and now we’re playing against Ireland in India and then Australia here,” Cricket.com.au quoted Rashid.

A different challenge

Rashid added that the playing Test in Australia is a huge achievement and players including himself were excited about playing Test cricket down under. The quick bowlers and bouncy wickets are different from what they are used to and the challenge is different from what they have faced.

“I think wickets are very tough here to bat on, especially in the Test cricket. I hope that we don’t play in Perth, we play somewhere else on a good wicket to make some runs and a little bit good for the spinner as well,” Rashid said.

Rashid also said that he hopes that he doesn’t get to play on bouncy wickets like the one in Perth. “As we have seen against India, I think wickets are very tough here to bat on, especially in the Test cricket. I hope that we don’t play in Perth, we play somewhere else on a good wicket to make some runs and a little bit good for the spinner as well,” Rashid said.

Afghanistan was granted Test status by ICC in 2017, along with Ireland and the two teams are slated to play a one-off Test match from March 15 to 19 at the Rajiv Gandhi International Cricket Stadium, Dehradun. Then they will play Test matches against Zimbabwe in August, Bangladesh in October, West Indies in November-December and then Ireland again in March 2020.

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