Ikram Alikhil

His path into international cricket came abruptly. When Mohammad Shahzad departed in controversial circumstances, Ikram was pushed into the national side, and he was summoned as an emergency replacement during the 2019 World Cup.

As a batter he offers something quite different from the man he succeeded. Rather than attacking from the first ball, he prefers to anchor an innings, gathering pace gradually and aiming to stay in for the long haul. His first appearances at that World Cup did not go smoothly and he looked uncomfortable, though the soundness of his defence still stood out. He found his feet in Afghanistan's last league fixture, against West Indies, where he made an elegant 86 while batting near the top of the order. That innings suggests his best position is among the first three, and that pushing him down to seventh or lower would waste his abilities.

With the gloves, he moves quickly but is not yet a finished article and still has areas to refine. Looking ahead, he faces a contest with Ibrahim Zadran, another talented teenage wicket-keeper batter, to become Afghanistan's first-choice keeper.