Pakistan have handed a debut to 38-year-old Asif Afridi for the second Test against South Africa in Rawalpindi, making him one of the oldest debutants in recent men’s Test history.
Pakistan replaced right-arm seamer Hasan Ali with left-arm spinner Asif Afridi for the second Test in Rawalpindi, indicating that spin could play an even bigger role in the game than it did in the first Test in Lahore. South Africa, meanwhile, brought in Keshav Maharaj and Marco Jansen at the expense of Prenelan Subrayen and Wiaan Mulder.
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Aged 38 years and 299 days as of today (October 20), Afridi has become the second-oldest men’s Test debutant for Pakistan, going past Tabish Khan, who was aged 36 years 146 days when he debuted against Zimbabwe in 2021. The oldest Pakistani cricketer to debut in Test matches is Miran Bakhsh, who played his first match aged 47 years 284 days in 1955.
Bakhsh is also the second oldest male cricketer ever to make his Test debut after James Southerton who was 49 years 119 days old when he played in the first ever Test match in 1877.
Afridi is also the second oldest cricketer to make his men’s Test debut in the 21st century after Ed Joyce, who was aged 39 years 231 days when he played in Ireland’s first Test in 2019.
Afridi made his first-class debut way back in 2009, but his story has been anything but straightforward. In 16 years, he has only played 57 first-class matches and picked up 198 wickets at an average of 25.49. After playing three games in his first season in 2009, Afridi’s next first-class appearance came in 2015. There was another three-year gap between 2018 and 2021 where he didn’t play any first-class games.
Since 2023 however, he has been a consistent performer, having taken 80 out of his 198 first-class wickets in the last three years. Afridi also featured for Lahore Qalandars in PSL 2025, taking seven wickets from nine matches at 24.71.
With Noman Ali and Sajid Khan also in the XI, Afridi will serve the role of the third spinner in the Pakistan XI.
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