Twitter Reactions: Afghanistan all-rounder Mohammad Nabi makes IPL debut

Afghanistan allrounder Mohammad Nabi, in February, became the first player from his country to grab an IPL deal. Sunrisers Hyderabad bought him for his base price of INR 30 lakhs Nabi after having to warm the bench in the first few games, he is all set to make his debut against Kings XI Punjab. he and his country-mate Rashid Khan will be playing together.

He has previously played in the Bangladesh Premier League and Pakistan Super League, but IPL is the platform most cricketers look forward to.

Soon after the auctions, Nabi had told Cricinfo that, “I’m very happy [Sunrisers Hyderabad] picked me. A little bit of happiness tears came into my eyes as well when I was selected. It was my dream to play in the IPL and for my dream to come true, that’s why I was so happy at that moment.”

Both Nabi and Rashid were brilliant in the BPL with Rashid claiming 13 wickets from 8 games and Nabi claiming 19 wickets in 13 games. Afghanistan have made great strides in international cricket, and are now being recognised as a force to reckon with.

Coming to the game, Sunrisers made three changes to their XI against Kings XI Punjab, the Afghanistan spin-bowling allrounder will make his IPL debut, and seamers Siddarth Kaul and Barinder Sran will make their season debut. They replaced Ben Cutting, Bipul Sharma and Ashish Nehra.

With both the Afghanistanis in their side, Sunrisers are the first IPL team to field two Associate players in the XI.

Here is how Twitter welcomed Nabi into the SRH team:

Playing XI for today’s game:

Sunrisers Hyderabad: 1 David Warner (capt), 2 Shikhar Dhawan, 3 Moises Henriques, 4 Yuvraj Singh, 5 Deepak Hooda, 6 Mohammad Nabi, 7 Naman Ojha (wk), 8 Rashid Khan, 9 Bhuvneshwar Kumar, 10 Barinder Sran, 11 Siddarth Kaul.

Kings XI Punjab: 1 Manan Vohra, 2 Hashim Amla, 3 Wriddhiman Saha (wk), 4 Glenn Maxwell (capt), 5 Eoin Morgan, 6 David Miller, 7 Axar Patel, 8 Mohit Sharma, 9 KC Cariappa, 10 Sandeep Sharma, 11 Ishant Sharma.