Who is Agha Salman? After he was called up to the Pakistan Test squad for the upcoming series against South Africa, we take a look at the Green Shirts hopeful.
Agha Salman was born on 23 November 1993 in Lahore, Punjab, making him 27 years old.
He is a right-handed middle-order batsman who bowls right-arm off-spin.
He made his first-class debut for Lahore Shalimar in a win over Lahore Ravi in February 2013, a month before his List A debut and a full year before his T20 bow.
He’s since racked up a total of 123 appearances across all formats, ensuring he’s now relatively experienced at the domestic level.
He’s enjoyed more success with the bat in red-ball cricket, while his bowling stats are better in limited-overs contests.
Given that he’s been called up for a Test series, though, his first-class record is what we’re primarily interested in.
Agha Salman has scored eight centuries and 20 fifties from 108 first-class innings, at an average of 36.92.
His highest score of 169 came against Central Punjab in November 2020 and he has a career strike-rate of 57.98, which is relatively high for multi-day cricket.
Remarkably, his first-class bowling average is currently exactly the same as his batting average, with his off-breaks claiming 80 wickets.
He’s yet to take a five-wicket haul in a red-ball match and has best figures of 4/15, suggesting that he would only feature as a supplementary spinner at international level.
He took 14 wickets in the 2020/21 edition of the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy, but his Pakistan call-up was mainly based on his batting performances.
He finished as the third-highest run-scorer in the competition with 941 at an impressive average of 58.81.
Salman will be hoping to make his Pakistan debut in the South Africa series but even if he doesn’t make the playing XI for either Test, time is on his side with veterans like Azhar Ali and Fawad Alam coming towards the end of their careers.