Ibrahim Zadran

Zadran, a veteran of two Under-19 World Cups in which he was his side's top run-scorer, got off to a storming start in senior international cricket: he made three hundreds in five ODIs when he came back to the format following a two-year hiatus after his first match, in 2019. The last of those centuries was 162 against Sri Lanka in Pallekele, which won him the Player-of-the-Series award.

The next ODI he played, also against Sri Lanka, around seven months later, fetched him 98. A few weeks on from that, back in Chattogram, he harvested an even 100 against Bangladesh to set up a 2-1 ODI series win.

In February 2024, Zadran's 114 in the second innings of the one-off Test in Colombo gave Sri Lanka a bit of a scare, taking Afghanistan to 214 to 2 before they lost their last eight wickets for 80-odd runs. Similarly, against Australia in the 2023 World Cup, his 129 laid the foundation for a chunky total, only to be bested by a freak double-hundred by an injured Glenn Maxwell. Earlier in the tournament Zadran had top-scored with 87 in a comfortable win against Pakistan.

Nine months on from that defeat in Mumbai, Afghanistan had their revenge, beating Australia in the T20 World Cup in St Vincent, and Zadran was a key architect with a fifty in an opening partnership of 118 with Rahmanullah Gurbaz. By that point he was in the middle of a purple patch in 2024, having made fifties against India, Sri Lanka, Ireland and Uganda, and 44 in a win over New Zealand in the T20 World Cup.

Unlike some of his team-mates, Zadran doesn't quite have the T20 strike rate to get the top leagues interested, but his average - in the early 30s - is up there with the best.