Mohammad Saleem Safi, a 23-year-old Afghanistan pacer, ripped through India’s batting on Day 2 of the one-off Test in Mullanpur, finishing with a six-wicket haul as India declared on 564-8.
Safi’s figures — 27-3-140-6 — were the match’s standout individual return. He removed three top-order batters across the first two days: Yashasvi Jaiswal and B Sai Sudharsan on Day 1, and Shubman Gill on Day 2, then added Dhruv Jurel, Manav Suthar and Mohammed Siraj to complete the six.
The scale of the performance is amplified by the circumstances: this was only Safi’s second Test. He made his international Test debut in February 2024 at the Sinhalese Sports Club Ground in Colombo, where he bowled 12.1 overs for 57 runs before a strained left hamstring forced him out of the match.
Safi’s rise to this moment has been quick and domestic-rooted. Born in Baghlan in northern Afghanistan, he first appeared in multi-day cricket on February 25, 2019, for Kunduz province in the 2018-19 Mirwais Nika Provincial 3-Day Trophy and made his first List A outing for Amo Region in September 2019. He received his first national squad call-up in February 2021 and made his international debut in July 2023.
The Mullanpur innings underlines an odd split in Safi’s record: despite the six in Tests, he has played three white-ball internationals and is yet to take a wicket in those games. On a hot, docile surface in Mullanpur the 23-year-old bowled in full tilt and found the kind of bounce and late movement that produced his Test breakthrough.
For Afghanistan the haul was a rare, clear piece of good fortune against a major Test nation; for India it was a reminder that individual sessions can still be decisive even after a large score is posted. Gill’s 126 had anchored India’s reply to whatever Afghanistan offered, yet Safi’s burst sliced through the tail and the lower order, ensuring the declaration came after more than 560 runs.
The friction in the match is immediate and practical. India declared at 564-8, leaving Afghanistan a mammoth task in reply. Safi’s success answers one problem — a lack of a strike bowler on a surface that did not appear to offer much — but it deepens another: can Afghanistan’s batting and supporting bowling carry the momentum his spell created?
There is also a fitness question. Safi’s hamstring problem on Test debut in Colombo is a recorded fact; delivering another sustained Test spell after that injury, in scorching heat, reads as a minor gamble on his body. Whether he can reproduce this intensity over the remainder of the match matters as much as the wickets themselves.
What happens next is the central unresolved issue of this contest. Safi’s six makes Afghanistan more than spectators in a high-scoring game, but it does not answer how they will counter India’s 564-8 total or whether the young pacer will be available to lead any second-innings fight. The match now hinges on Afghanistan’s reply and on whether Safi’s breakthrough turns into a sustained weapon rather than a one-off headline.
