Debutant Saqib Khan Takes Seven Wickets as Pakistan Fight Back Against Sri Lanka in Rain-Hit Rawalpindi Test

RAWALPINDI: Saqib Khan waited 31 years for a Test cap, and then, on a grey Thursday morning in Rawalpindi, he needed only about ninety minutes to make it unforgettable. The debutant fast bowler took five wickets for 25 runs in an unbroken eight-over spell as Sri Lanka collapsed from 404 for four overnight to 446 all out, handing Pakistan a way back into a first Test that had been slipping away from them. By the time bad light and then rain ended play midway through the second session, Pakistan had reached 57 for one in their second innings, 45 runs ahead, with the fifth and final day still to play on Friday.

Saqib finished with seven wickets for 130 runs from 34 overs, with five maidens, according to ESPNcricinfo. It was the fourth-best return by a Pakistan bowler on Test debut, and it made him only the fourth Pakistani ever to take seven wickets in an innings on his first appearance in the format, after Mohammad Nazir, Mohammad Zahid and Abrar Ahmed. He is only the second Pakistani fast bowler to do it, after Zahid, and the first to manage it in this century.

The morning had begun with Sri Lanka in command. Dhananjaya de Silva and Kusal Mendis, the two centurions, were still at the crease, and only one wicket had fallen on the third day. A lead of a hundred or more had looked entirely possible. Instead, Saqib removed de Silva with the fifth ball of the day, and Sri Lanka lost their last six wickets for 42 runs. The Associated Press reported that play was called off at 3:05 p.m. local time, with Pakistan 57 for one after 21.2 overs of their second innings.

The morning that changed the Test

The conditions did the debutant a favour, and he used them ruthlessly. Under cloudy skies, on a surface that still offered lateral movement, Saqib probed away in the channel outside off stump, according to ESPNcricinfo, and Sri Lanka’s batters kept nicking him behind. All but one of his five wickets on the fourth morning came from catches behind the wicket, and four of those were taken by wicketkeeper Ghazi Ghori.

De Silva was the first to go, and the manner of it set the tone. He had resumed on 167 overnight, Sri Lanka’s top scorer, and he did not add a run. Probing at an away-swinger in the fifth ball of the day, he pushed at one that left him and edged behind, ESPNcricinfo reported. It was the breakthrough Pakistan had needed for more than a day, and it came from the newest man in the side.

Kusal Mendis lasted longer but could add only two runs to his overnight 117 before he too edged Saqib to a diving Ghori. It was the second time in the same over that Saqib had found the captain’s edge; Saud Shakeel had spilled the first chance at first slip. Kusal’s 119 came from 202 balls, with ten fours and four sixes, according to CricToday, and his 249-run partnership with de Silva had been the foundation of Sri Lanka’s innings. Within two overs, both men were gone.

Saqib was just as effective against the left-handers. Some balls nipped back off the length, others held their line, and he kept testing the batters’ patience, ESPNcricinfo reported. Sonal Dinusha lost his after reaching 20, sending a catch to the cordon as he attempted a booming cover drive, and that wicket gave Saqib a maiden five-wicket haul in his first bowling innings in Test cricket. He then went at the stumps for the tail, nailing Lahiru Kumara plumb in front just before drinks, and Asitha Fernando was also caught behind. The innings ended when Milan Rathnayake was caught in the deep, and Sri Lanka’s first-innings lead was just 12 runs.

The figures tell the story of the morning plainly enough. Sri Lanka had resumed on 404 for four. They were bowled out for 446. Their last six wickets had fallen for 42 runs, and five of them belonged to a man playing his first Test. The Associated Press described it as a dream debut, and the description is hard to argue with.

How the collapse happened

The collapse was not a matter of reckless batting. It was a matter of a bowler finding a length and a line and refusing to leave them. Saqib’s spell was built on discipline rather than pace alone: ball after ball in the channel outside off stump, some swinging away, some nipping back, each one asking the batter to play. On a pitch that still had life in it on the fourth morning, that was enough.

According to reports from the match, Pakistan head coach Mike Hesson had urged his bowlers to target the off-stump line with outswingers, and Saqib carried out the instruction almost to the letter. De Silva’s dismissal was the template: a ball that swung away late, a push at it, an edge behind. Kusal’s was the same story with a small variation, the ball finding the edge after a dropped chance earlier in the over. Dinusha’s was the product of pressure rather than a single delivery: after a morning of being tied down, he reached for a wide ball and paid for it.

The wicketkeeper’s role deserves its own mention. Ghazi Ghori took four catches behind the stumps during the morning, including a diving take to remove Kusal, and his work turned edges into wickets at a rate that kept the pressure on the new batters. When a bowler is beating the bat as regularly as Saqib was, a sharp keeper is the difference between a good spell and a historic one.

It is also worth noting what Saqib had already done before Thursday. He had taken two wickets on the third day, and his first Test wicket had come just nine deliveries into his career, when he dismissed the experienced Dinesh Chandimal. He had also removed Udara for 42. The five-wicket burst on the fourth morning was not a bolt from nowhere; it was the continuation of a debut that had been building steadily since the second day.

Sri Lanka will look back on the morning with frustration. They had done the hard work, batting through most of the third day with only one wicket lost, and they had two set centurions at the crease. A lead of a hundred or more would have put them firmly in charge of the match. Instead, they lost six wickets for 42 runs, and the lead was 12. In Test cricket, mornings like that decide matches, and this one may yet decide this Test.

A debut for the record books

Saqib’s figures of seven for 130 put him in company that tells its own story. Only three Pakistan bowlers had taken seven wickets in an innings on Test debut before him. Mohammad Nazir took seven for 99 against New Zealand in 1969. Mohammad Zahid took seven for 66 against New Zealand in 1996. Abrar Ahmed took seven for 114 against England in 2022. Saqib’s seven for 130 is the fourth-best return of the four, because he conceded more runs than the other three, but the company is the same, and the achievement is the same.

Among fast bowlers, the list is even shorter. Zahid was the only Pakistani quick to take seven wickets on debut before Saqib, which makes Saqib only the second fast bowler from Pakistan to do it, and the only one to do it in this century. Abrar is a spinner, and Nazir was an off-spinner too. For a country whose cricketing identity has been built on fast bowling, from Fazal Mahmood to Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis, that is a notable line to add to the record books.

The numbers also stand comparison with debuts anywhere in the world. Seven wickets in an innings on debut is a rare feat in any era, and it is rarer still for a bowler who had to wait until the age of 31 for his chance. Most debutants who take seven wickets are young men at the start of long careers. Saqib is a man who has already spent the best part of a decade waiting for the opportunity, and he took it with both hands.

There is another number that matters. Saqib’s 34 overs included five maidens, and his seven wickets came at a cost of 130 runs. That is not a cheap haul, but it is an honest one: he bowled long spells on a pitch that had flattened out for much of the third day, and he kept coming back. The five wickets for 25 runs in eight overs on the fourth morning were the reward for that persistence.

Who is Saqib Khan?

To understand why Thursday mattered so much, it helps to know where Saqib Khan came from. He was born on 9 September 1995, which makes him 31, and he comes from Mingora in Swat, although he has lived in Karachi since the start of his cricket journey, first in Sher Shah and now in Metroville. Like so many Pakistani cricketers, he started with tape-ball cricket in the streets before moving to hard-ball cricket and joining the Future Stars Cricket Academy under Sir Liaquat.

He started late, and he says so himself. He spent seven or eight years putting in the effort before the opportunity came, according to reports of his background. His first-class debut came only at the age of 29, in the 2024-25 season. In his first 16 multi-day matches he took 71 wickets. Then came the season that changed everything: the 2025-26 Quaid-e-Azam Trophy, in which he finished as the leading fast bowler in the tournament with 47 wickets in nine matches at an average of 20.60, with best figures of seven for 34, playing a key role in Karachi Blues’ title-winning run.

He also impressed in the President’s Trophy Grade-I, featured in the Patron’s XI three-day practice match against Sri Lanka before this Test, and has been part of the HBL Pakistan Super League with Quetta Gladiators. He is a right-arm medium-fast bowler, according to his player profile, and his domestic record is the record of a bowler who had done everything the system asks of a cricketer and was still waiting for the call.

That wait is part of the story. Pakistan has no shortage of fast bowlers, and the queue for a Test cap is long. A bowler who makes his first-class debut at 29 is not supposed to play Test cricket at 31. The system is built for younger men, and the selectors’ attention is usually elsewhere. Saqib’s route to the Test side ran through weight of wickets rather than youth or reputation: 47 wickets in a Quaid-e-Azam Trophy season is a number that cannot be ignored, and in the end it was not ignored.

His debut also fits the character of this Pakistan side. Pakistan fielded four debutants in this match, including Saqib, Tayyab Arif and Mohammad Taha, and the team that took the field in Rawalpindi was one of the least experienced Pakistan have put out in a home Test for years. That inexperience showed at times, but on Thursday it also produced the defining performance of the match.

The match so far

The Test itself has been shaped as much by the weather as by either team. It is the first of a two-match series between Pakistan and Sri Lanka, part of the ICC World Test Championship, and it is being played at the Rawalpindi Cricket Stadium from 9 to 13 November. The second and final Test also takes place in Rawalpindi, starting on 17 November, after the Pakistan Cricket Board moved it from Lahore because of severe seasonal smog in the Punjab capital.

Pakistan batted first after Sri Lanka won the toss and chose to bowl, and captain Babar Azam declared on 434 for nine in 106.3 overs. Half-centuries came from Saud Shakeel, who made 93, debutant Tayyab Arif, who made 57, Arafat Minhas, who made 52, debutant Mohammad Taha, who made 51, Babar himself, who made 50, and wicketkeeper Ghazi Ghori, who made 48. Asitha Fernando took three for 107 and Dilshan Madushanka three for 108 for Sri Lanka. It was a solid total rather than a commanding one, and it left the match in the balance.

Sri Lanka’s reply began steadily. By the close of the second day they were 114 for three, 320 runs behind, with Kamindu Mendis on 40 and de Silva on 22. Saqib had already taken two wickets by then, including Chandimal, and Mohammad Abbas had taken one. The third day belonged to Sri Lanka’s batters. Only one wicket fell all day, and de Silva and Kusal built a partnership of 249 runs that carried the tourists past Pakistan’s total in spirit, if not yet in fact. Kamindu made 58 before he was dismissed, and by stumps on the third day Sri Lanka were 404 for four, with both centurions still there and a big lead in sight.

That is what makes Thursday morning so remarkable. A team that had lost one wicket in a full day lost six in about ninety minutes. The pitch had not changed overnight. The ball was not new. What changed was the bowling, and the bowler was a debutant who had waited half his adult life for the chance.

Pakistan’s second innings began with the same weather problems that have dogged the match. They lost debutant Tayyab Arif to Asitha Fernando, who produced Sri Lanka’s best spell before lunch, but Azan Awais and Mohammad Taha survived the testing periods. At lunch Pakistan were 34 for one, with Awais on 16 and Taha on 12. By the time play was called off, Pakistan were 57 for one, with Taha unbeaten on 24 and Awais unbeaten on 22, and the lead was 45 runs.

Bad light and rain have cost this match large chunks of play on more than one day, and the fourth day was no exception. Only 21.2 overs of Pakistan’s second innings were possible before stumps were called. With more rain forecast for Friday, the match is heading for a draw, according to the AFP report, and that will leave the series to be decided by the second Test.

What day five holds

The fifth and final day begins on Friday, 13 November, with play scheduled to start at 9:30 a.m. Pakistan time. Pakistan will resume on 57 for one, leading by 45 runs, and the shape of the day depends on two things: the weather, and how positively Pakistan choose to bat.

If the rain stays away, Pakistan have a decision to make. A lead of 45 is nothing. They will want to bat long enough to build a total that Sri Lanka cannot chase in the time remaining, and then give their bowlers, led by Saqib, a chance to take ten wickets. That is the textbook route to a result. But the weather has already eaten into this match, and the forecast for Friday is poor. If rain and bad light intervene again, as they have on every day so far, the draw becomes the likeliest outcome, and both teams will be left to settle the series in the second Test.

For Saqib, the final day offers a second chance. He has already taken seven wickets in the first innings. If Pakistan can set Sri Lanka a target, he will have the new ball, or something close to it, and the chance to add to his debut figures. A debutant who takes ten wickets in a match is a rarer thing still, and it is not beyond him if the weather allows.

For Sri Lanka, the task is simpler: survive. They have already shown they can bat long on this pitch, and their two centurions have both made big hundreds in this match. If the weather holds and Pakistan set them a target, they will need to bat out the day. If the weather does not hold, the draw will come to them.

Analysis: Why It Matters

Debuts are supposed to be about nerves, not records

There is a reason seven-wicket hauls on debut are so rare. A first Test is usually a day of nerves: new surroundings, new expectations, the weight of a cap that thousands of cricketers never receive. Most debutants spend the match trying not to make a mistake. Saqib spent his taking wickets. His first came nine deliveries into his Test career. His seventh came in a spell that turned the match. That is not the behaviour of a man overawed by the occasion, and it suggests a temperament that Pakistan’s selectors will have noted.

Domestic cricket still works, when it is allowed to

Saqib’s story is, among other things, a defence of Pakistan’s domestic structure. He did not arrive in the Test side through a talent programme or a white-ball shortcut. He arrived through the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy, the country’s first-class competition, by taking 47 wickets in nine matches and finishing as its leading fast bowler. That is the system working exactly as it is supposed to work: a bowler performs, season after season, and the performance is rewarded. The lesson is not that every 31-year-old domestic performer deserves a cap. It is that the domestic game still produces Test cricketers, and that ignoring it costs teams players like this one.

Pakistan’s pace cupboard is deeper than it looked

Pakistan’s fast-bowling stocks have been a subject of anxiety for years. The great names of the past have retired, injuries have taken their toll, and the search for the next generation has felt endless. A debutant taking seven wickets does not solve that problem on its own, but it does change the conversation. Pakistan’s attack in this match included a 31-year-old debutant and three other debutants in the side, and it was the debutant who delivered the performance of the match. Depth is not only about the names everyone knows. Sometimes it is about the man who has been taking wickets in Karachi while nobody was watching.

The weather has been the third team in this match

It would be wrong to write about this Test without acknowledging the role of the weather. Bad light and rain have eaten into every day, and the fourth day ended at 3:05 p.m. with only 21.2 overs of Pakistan’s second innings bowled. The match is heading for a draw largely because the sky has not allowed enough cricket to be played. That is a pity, because the cricket that has been played has been genuinely compelling: two centurions, a 249-run partnership, a debutant’s seven-wicket haul, and a match that has swung back and forth. The second Test, starting on 17 November, will be the one that decides the series, and both teams will hope the weather lets them play it.

For Sri Lanka, a warning and a reprieve

Sri Lanka will leave Rawalpindi with mixed feelings. Their batting, led by de Silva and Kusal, showed they can dominate Pakistan’s attack for long periods. Their collapse on Thursday morning showed they can also lose six wickets for 42 runs against a debutant. The reprieve is the weather: a draw would be a good result for a touring side that spent much of the fourth day watching a Test slip away. The warning is that their batters’ technique against late movement outside off stump was exposed, and Pakistan’s bowlers will have taken note before the second Test.

What to Watch Next

1. Day five weather: More rain is forecast for Friday in Rawalpindi. Whether enough play is possible to force a result is the first question of the day.
2. Pakistan’s declaration thinking: How quickly Pakistan bat, and how many runs they want before declaring, will decide whether Sri Lanka are set a target at all.
3. Saqib’s second innings: If Pakistan set a target, the debutant will have the chance to add to his seven wickets and push for a ten-wicket match on debut.
4. Taha and Awais at the crease: Two debutant batters are unbeaten overnight. How they handle the second new ball will shape the morning.
5. Sri Lanka’s response: The tourists must decide whether to chase a target or shut up shop and bat for the draw, and their approach will reveal how much Thursday’s collapse has shaken them.
6. The second Test: The series resumes in Rawalpindi on Tuesday, 17 November, with selection for both sides likely to be influenced by what happened in this match.
7. The World Test Championship table: Points from this series count towards the ICC World Test Championship, and a draw here keeps both teams’ campaigns finely balanced heading into the second Test.

Sources

• ESPNcricinfo — Saqib’s seven brings Pakistan back into Test
• Associated Press via Yardbarker — Saqib Khan takes 7 wickets on debut before rain disrupts Pakistan-Sri Lanka first Test
• Agence France-Presse via Cricketnmore — PAK vs SL 1st Test: Pakistan-Sri Lanka Test hit by bad weather after Saqib’s heroics
• IANS via Cricketnmore — Debutant Saqib Khan’s seven-wicket haul keeps Pakistan alive in Rawalpindi Test
• Cricbuzz — Saqib picks seven as Pakistan chip at Sri Lanka’s grip
• CricToday — Pakistan pacer Saqib Khan joins elite list after claiming 7/130 vs SL in Rawalpindi Test