Rahmanullah Gurbaz

Rahmanullah Gurbaz is yet another dashing opening batsman who also keeps wickets for the Afghanistan national team. He is an explosive right-hander who believes in cracking the cricketing ball in two halves when he hits it in style. Gurbaz’s talent speaks volumes for itself as he is the first Afghani to score a century on debut. 

Gurbaz is one of Afghanistan’s budding crop of cricketers who made the name for himself during the age group itself. Gurbaz was part of the squad for the 2018 U-19 World Cup and the ACC U-19 Asia Cup. The opener also emerged as Afghanistan’s leading run-scorer in the latter tournament. Later, he was named in the U-23 team for the 2018 ACC Emerging Teams Asia Cup. 

The dasher made a great mark in the age-group cricket to don the Afghanistani colors. He made his T20I debut against Zimbabwe where he scored 43 off just 24 deliveries, in September 2019. A couple of months later, the Afghani was selected by Khulna Tigers in the BPL and went to play in CPL for Barbados Tridents in the 2020 season.

Gurbaz made his breakthrough during the 2021 Abu Dhabi T10 league. He played for Delhi Bulls and went on to become their second-highest run-getter. Soon he was recalled by ACB to make his ODI debut. The explosive opener scored 127 runs against Ireland on debut, to become the first player from his country to hit a ton in his first match. 

Gurbaz, the wicket-keeping batsman is emerging as a replacement for the fading Mohammad Shahzad. He is one of the finest openers present in the limited-overs formats. However, the dasher has competition within the campaign in Usman Ghani, Hazaratullah Zazai, and Najibullah Zadran. 

(As of March 2021)