The Afghanistan Cricket Board (ACB) has announced the 16-member squad for the one-off Test against Sri Lanka. Rashid Khan isn’t in the team as he’s not fully recovered from injury yet but Qais Ahmad, who played his last Test 5 years ago, has been selected in the squad.  Besides, two new faces have been added.

Batter Noor Ali Zadran, left-arm spinner Zia-ur-Rehman, wicket-keeper batter Mohammad Ishaq, and right-arm medium pacer Naveed Zadran have been called up by Afghanistan for the Test against Sri Lanka in Colombo. None of them have made their Test debut yet.

Noor Ali Zadran is the most experienced of the four cricketers who got a new call. Mujeeb Ur Rahman and Ibrahim Zadran are his nephews. Since his debut in 2009, he has played 51 ODIs and 23 T20Is. Zia, on the other hand, has an enviable first-class bowling record of 159 wickets in 28 matches at an average of 19.1. He can also provide lower-order contributions with the bat. He has a batting average of 16.58 in first-class cricket. Naveed has taken 35 wickets in 7 first-class matches.

However, Rashid Khan, one of the most important cricketers of the Afghanistan team, is not in this series. Rashid last played in the ODI World Cup in October-November 2023, after which he underwent back surgery. After that, besides missing the BBL and Afghanistan's India tour, he also pulled himself out of the PSL starting on February 17.

Due to the absence of Rashid, Qais Ahmad has been called into the Test team. In Rashid's absence, he was also in the T20I match in the India series. However, Qais played one Test match even though he has not yet made his debut in first-class cricket.

Note that the only Test match between Sri Lanka and Afghanistan will start on February 2, in Colombo. Afghanistan have been out of Test cricket for a long time. Last year (2023) in June, Afghans played the last Test match against Bangladesh. They lost that Dhaka Test by a huge margin of 546 runs.

Afghanistan squad: Hashmatullah Shahidi (c), Rahmat Shah (vc), Ikram Alikhail (wk), Mohammad Ishaq (wk), Ibrahim Zadran, Noor Ali Zadran, Abdul Malik, Baheer Shah, Nasir Jamal, Qais Ahmad, Zahir Khan, Zia Ur Rehman Akbar, Yamin Ahmadzai, Nijat Masoud, Mohammad Saleem Safi and Naveed Zadran.