NEW CHANDIGARH – Mohammad Saleem Safi had taken six wickets and bowled himself ragged for 140 runs across 37 overs. It was the kind of performance that deserved to matter. Instead, it found itself buried under the weight of a declaration – India 564 for 8, the second-highest total ever compiled against Afghanistan in Test cricket – and a home side that had already moved on to the real business of the day.
That business arrived in the fourth over of Afghanistan’s reply. Manav Suthar, 23, from Sri Ganganagar in Rajasthan, a left-arm spinner who had grown up watching Ravichandran Ashwin on television and telling himself he wanted to bowl exactly like that, sent down his fourth delivery in Test cricket and watched it spin past Abdul Malik’s defences. Malik had top-edged a sweep to backward square leg, and Suthar had his first wicket, and India had a moment that no scorecard entry could fully contain.
At tea on Day 2 at the Maharaja Yadavindra Singh International Cricket Stadium, Afghanistan stood at 28 for 1 – trailing by 536 runs, with four days theoretically remaining but the match already trending in one direction.
The morning session had belonged to the tail. India resumed at 368 for 3 with captain Shubman Gill – who had reached his century on his hometown ground the previous evening – and Rishabh Pant at the crease. Afghanistan took the new ball in the second over and found seam and swing almost immediately. Azmatullah Omarzai trapped Gill for 126 in front of leg stump. Pant, who had ended Day 1 on 50 not out, fell the same way shortly after, leg before for 81. The middle order had been dismantled before lunch.
What followed in the post-lunch session was a demonstration of India’s depth in this particular format against this particular opponent. Washington Sundar accumulated with the quiet efficiency of someone who has learned to play the supporting role without complaint. Kuldeep Yadav kept him company. Saleem Safi continued to wheel away at pace unusual for a spinner, beating edges regularly and drawing the kind of appreciative murmurs from the Mullanpur crowd that losing bowlers sometimes receive. His fifth wicket, which arrived when Suthar tried to drive through cover and edged behind, completed a five-wicket haul and gave him six when Mohammed Siraj’s stumps were rearranged by a ball that reversed late.
But Siraj had already made his mark. Promoted over Kuldeep in the order, he took apart left-arm spinner Nangeyalia Kharote in a cameo of 22 off 12 balls that left the capacity crowd delighted and the Afghanistan fielders chasing to the boundary. Washington brought up his sixth Test half-century with a pulled six off Saleem in the final over before the declaration.
India declared on 564 for 8 in 127 overs. Every specialist batsman in the lineup had crossed double figures. The top four – KL Rahul with 100, Sai Sudharsan with 81, Shubman Gill with 126, and Pant with 81 – had built the foundation on Day 1, with Gill and Rahul each surviving DRS reviews that Afghanistan chose not to challenge in time. Both reviews were struck down.
Then came the moment this match will be remembered for beyond the scoreline.
Suthar had received his Test cap from Kuldeep Yadav before the match began – India’s first specialist spin-bowling Test debutant since Axar Patel in 2021. Cap number 319. Kuldeep had told him to trust his skills. The occasion is large, Kuldeep said, but nothing changes.
Suthar’s first ball in Test cricket – tossed up, landing on length outside off at 87.5 km/h – spun past Malik’s push-drive and beat the outside edge. The Mullanpur crowd responded the way Mullanpur crowds had been responding to spin all day, with the kind of noise that only comes when the ball takes genuine bite. Three more deliveries followed, each extracting turn. The fourth was slightly fuller and straighter, and Malik moved across the stumps to counteract it, but played well inside the line. The edge carried to backward square leg. Suthar wheeled away with his arms open, and India had a wicket on debut that their three specialists would need to build on over the remaining four sessions.
The 23-year-old had spoken before the match began about where the journey started – street cricket in Sri Ganganagar, his father watching matches at home, a sister’s phone call that confirmed his name was in the squad. He had been passed over repeatedly during assignments with Gujarat Titans and India A before his debut in an unofficial Test against Australia A last year settled the question of what he could do when actually given the ball. He took eight wickets in that match.
Afghanistan’s openers Sediqullah Atal and Abdul Malik had added 28 before Suthar ended the stand, with Rahmanullah Gurbaz waiting at number three. The tourists face a near-impossible equation – 536 to avoid an innings defeat, with Kuldeep Yadav and Suthar joining Siraj in an attack that has yet to find its full rhythm on a surface that already showed significant turn in the final session of the day.
What Saleem Safi’s six-wicket haul has demonstrated is that Afghanistan are not arriving in New Chandigarh simply to participate. His sustained hostility across 37 overs against a batting lineup of this quality – claiming scalps with reverse swing at a stage when most bowlers would have been conserving energy – made a case that the series of Test matches this country has been permitted so rarely may be the thing that develops their cricket faster than anything else. Whether that development continues on Days 3 and 4, and whether Suthar and Kuldeep can end it before then, remains the only open question left in a match that India have already shaped entirely to their liking.
As a batting exercise, India’s first day had already set the conditions: Gill and Rahul both producing centuries, Sudharsan missing his by 19 runs, every batter contributing to a total that left Afghanistan no margin for error with the bat. What Day 2 added was the other half of the story – the debutant who converted the platform into the thing that wins Test matches, a wicket that announced his arrival in the best possible way, on his fourth delivery, with the ball turning square in front of a hometown crowd that had been waiting all day for exactly that.
