Rashid Khan breaks Waqar Younis record to become youngest Test-winning captain

Afghanistan’s ace leg-spinner Rashid Khan has become the youngest captain to win a Test as he led the minnows to thrash Bangladesh in the one-off Test at Chittagong on Monday.

He is not yet 21 and making a debut as Test captain, spun Afghanistan to a memorable win, by 224 runs, and picked up the Man-of-the-Match award too, for his 11 wickets in the match and a half-century in the first innings.

Winning his debut Test as captain at the age of 20 years and 354 days, he broke the record of Pakistan’s Waqar Younis, who led Pakistan to a 131-run victory against Zimbabwe at Karachi in 1993-94 at the age of 22 years and 20 days (in his debut as captain).

When the one-off Test against Bangladesh began on Thursday (September 5), Rashid became the youngest player ever to lead a Test side, at the age of 20 years and 350 days. He surpassed the record of Tatenda Taibu, who led Zimbabwe against Sri Lanka at Harare in 2004 at the age of 20 years and 358 days.

Thus, he set two world records in the same Test match - becoming the youngest player to lead his country   and also the youngest ever winning captain.

Receiving the Man-of-the-Match award after for his outstanding all-round performance and winning the match, he said: “Thanks to the Almighty Allah for this performance, under my captaincy we won this game against a big side like Bangladesh. We are new in this format, so the credit goes to the coaching staff [and] the players the way they prepared for this game".

Receiving the Man-of-the-Match award  for his outstanding allround performance and leading his team to a memorable  victory, he said: “Thanks to the almighty Allah for this performance, under my captaincy we won this game against a big side like Bangladesh. We are new in this format, so the credit goes to the coaching staff [and] the players the way they prepared for this game".

Born on September 20, 1998 in Nangarhar, Afghanistan, Rashid Khan was one of the eleven cricketers to play in his country's first ever Test match in June 2018. This was against India at Bangalore and Afghanistan lost it. Later, they won the other two Tests, played so far, against Ireland and Chittagong.

He has so far taken 20 wickets at 18.00 apiece along with 104 runs at an average of 20.80 in all the three Tests.

Rashid also played 62 One-day Internationals and 38 Twenty20 Internationals.