IND vs AFG 2026 One-off Test: June 6 will be day to cherish forever for Rajasthan and Gujarat Titans left-arm spinner Manav Suthar. The 23-year-old spinner from Sri Ganganagar in Rajasthan became the latest Indian debutant in the India vs Afghanistan 2026 one-off Test which got underway at Maharaja Yadavindra Singh International Cricket Stadium in Mullanpur, New Chandigarh, from Saturday.
Suthar, who was retained for Rs 30 lakh by Shubman Gill’s Gujarat Titans, has become the first specialist spinner to make his Test debut for Team India after Axar Patel in 2021. But in the last three seasons, Suthar has only managed to play in 5 IPL matches for GT while claiming only 2 wickets. In IPL 2026, Suthar played in only 4 games and claimed 2 wickets.
“Nine Test matches after this, we’ll be playing two against Sri Lanka and five at home. So we’ve got quite a few Test matches here at home and similar conditions, I would say, in Sri Lanka and in India. So just trying to get our combinations right and a lot of things as a batting group that we need to prove, especially here. So those are things that we are looking to. We’ve got Manav Suthar making his debut for the first time,” Team India skipper Shubman Gill said at the toss announcing the debut cap handed to Suthar on Saturday.
Suthar shot into national prominence in the 2022-23 domestic season when he was the leading wicket-taker for Rajasthan claiming 39 wickets in only 6 matches. Overall, he has claimed 129 wickets in 29 first-class matches so far at an excellent average of 25.76 with 3 ten-wicket hauls and 6 five-wicket hauls so far.
Also Read | IND vs AFG 2026 Live Streaming Info, One-off Test: When, Where, How to Watch India vs Afghanistan Live Score, TV Telecast, Mobile App Online
The left-arm spinner comes from a modest household in Rajasthan as his father Jagdish Suthar is a Physical Education teacher at a school in Sri Ganganagar town near the Pakistan border. “I didn’t push him…he had interest in cricket, so at 11, I put him in an academy. I wanted him to become a batsman. But his coach (Dheeraj Sharma) told me on the first day of training that my son is made for bowling,” Suthar was quoted as saying by Indian Express newspaper.
Suthar’s coach Dheeraj Sharma claims that his ward is a classical left-arm spinner. “He is built in a classical mould. He is not someone who will bowl with a flat trajectory. He has an action and a release perfect for a left-arm spinner. Be it bowling speeds, variations or efficiency in terms of constantly asking questions, he has it in him. Even though he hasn’t got any game time in the IPL, I tell him to use the two months to learn how to prepare and read the game,” coach Dheeraj said about Suthar.
The smile says it all ☺️
Congratulations to debutant Manav Suthar as he receives his #TeamIndia Test cap from Kuldeep Yadav
Updates ▶️ https://t.co/Au50EfVM30#INDvAFG | @IDFCFIRSTBank pic.twitter.com/YRa3nUnYIY
— BCCI (@BCCI) June 6, 2026
India: KL Rahul, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Sai Sudharsan, Shubman Gill (c), Rishabh Pant (wk), Dhruv Jurel, Washington Sundar, Manav Suthar, Kuldeep Yadav, Mohammed Siraj, Prasidh Krishna.
Afghanistan: Sediqullah Atal, Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Abdul Malik , Rahat Shah, Hashmatullah Shahidi (c), Afsar Zazai (wk), Azmatullah Omarzai, Sharafuddin Ashraf, Nangeyalia Kharote, Ziaur Rahman, Mohammad Saleem
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Devadyuti Das is a senior sports editor with two decades of expertise in the media landscape. Based in New Delhi, Devadyuti has been a fixture in sports reporting since 2005, specializing in Internati … Read More
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