6 min readJun 8, 2026 09:16 AM IST
First published on: Jun 7, 2026 at 06:18 PM IST
Of the key answers that India were pursuing with purpose this week, one arrived on the second afternoon of the one-off Test in New Chandigarh. It would have taken nothing less than a miracle for Afghanistan to silence the Indian batters once captain Shubman Gill had decided to bat first on the opening morning. Predictably, they failed, saved in part from the painful fielding exercise with an Indian declaration coming at 567 for eight after 127 overs on day two.
Minutes before tea, the Indian management were teased with a sequence that would have helped tick a vital box of the fourth spinner before the World Test Championship (WTC) assignments resume in Sri Lanka in two months.
Hailing from close to the Line of Control (LOC) in west Rajasthan, debutant Manav Suthar imbued second-nature restraint with the ball. The left-arm spinner initiated his bowling career with a vicious turner – whirring past Afghanistan opener Abdul Malik’s wafted bat from length. Three deliveries in, the 23-year-old landed the ball with a similar trajectory. Sharp spin at 91 kmph, Malik ballooned the sweep to Mohammed Siraj at short fine-leg, handing Suthar a wicket in his first over in the India whites.
It had taken Suthar’s childhood coach, Dheeraj Sharma, two days to convince his father Jagdish to forgo the dream of a world-beating batter. Though he held a decent account of himself with two smiteful sixes over long-on and off in a 28-run knock earlier in the day, the prodigious revs that emerged from his high and vertical release were the highlight, reaffirming Sharma’s initial assessment in quaint Sriganganagar years ago.
Gill entrusted his Gujarat Titans teammate to open the spin attack in the sixth over, ahead of seniors Kuldeep Yadav and Washington Sundar. Bowling unchanged for 13 overs from the southern end, Suthar didn’t yield an inch. Even when he erred with a loosener that Rahmanullah Gurbaz slog-swept for six, Suthar returned in full force. Gurbaz could only toe of his bat hard onto the pitch when a delivery angled at his pads swooshed left from the leg-stump line, carrying the outside-edge to second slip.
He cupped the ball off Afsar Khan’s leading edge for a third, reducing Afghanistan to 113 for five at stumps.
Saleem relief
The clock had just struck 10 in the morning. The heat was searing at 40 degrees Celsius, but Afghanistan captain Hashmatullah Shahidi was perspiring a lot more than his teammates. Delaying the second new ball to day two morning, his seamers had begun with certain movement against Shubman Gill and wicket-keeper Rishabh Pant on a placid pitch. But for a reticent Shahidi and successive umpiring howlers, the overnight batters received another bunch of let-offs.
Playing amidst largely deserted stands, there was perhaps no way that Shahidi’s men couldn’t have been enlivened by Azmatullah Omarzai’s delivery that took Pant’s outside edge to the keeper. It occurred only a moment after they bungled an opportunity to freeze Gill the previous ball. Omarzai slammed the ball into Gill’s front pad with a stern nip-backer, crashing into leg stump, plumb. But Shahidi’s extended chat with his teammates ended in another refusal to review, burning a documented dismissal.
The bowling load needed a sturdier carrier. Turning up for the national side for the first time in two years – his previous four outings bearing no international wicket – pacer Mohammad Saleem had snipped Yashasvi Jaiswal and B Sai Sudharsan on day one. Hailing from the Baghlan region of northern Afghanistan, Saleem had nothing but a jumbo fast-bowling dream to resurrect a cricket career he had quit due to financial constraints in 2019.
When India eventually declared in the second session, Saleem carried a devitalised unit back to the pavilion. His bowling arm raised, Saleem acknowledged the first six wickets of his international career, all coming in one shot (6/140) after years of dogged labour.
Unlike his seam-bowling peers, Saleem was more than a trying trundler, breaching the 145-kph mark at will even on a hotter afternoon. Despite the early fluffed opportunities, Saleem’s persistence briefly turned the session around for Afghanistan, their best in the contest, nabbing two wickets in succession.
Resuming from his overnight ton, Gill appeared imperious throughout before losing his footing to Saleem on length. The unexpected lift stranded Gill’s weight back into the crease, taking a thick edge back to the keeper. Despite the strokeplay that exudes confidence of a specialist, Dhruv Jurel’s overzealous knock was, in contrast, flattened when he decided to leave an incoming length delivery from Saleem, the ball homing in towards the top of off-stump.
Walking back after producing just the sixth six-for by a visiting pacer in India this century, Saleem exhibited qualities of a promising quick. In Suthar, India may have also glimpsed a spinner locked in for the long haul.
Brief scores: India 564/8 decl. in 127 overs (Gill 129, Rahul 106, Saleem 6/140) vs Afghanistan 113/5 in 39.5 overs (Shah 43 batting, Suthar 3/21).
Manav Suthar bowls vs Afghanistan at Mullanpur on Sunday. (Express Photo | Kamleshwar Singh) 
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