Zahir Shehzad

Zahir Shehzad is another exceptional left-arm spinner from Afghanistan. He plays his professional cricket for Speen Ghar Region, alongside global superstar Qais Ahmad.

The tweaker burst into domestic cricket in 2017 and finished as the Ahmad Shah Abdali 4-Day Tournament’s joint leading wicket-taker with 55 scalps at 26.63. To add context, fellow CricX star Zia Ur Rehman Akbar shared the top spot (55 wickets at 19.74) and was arguably UK league cricket’s best spin bowler in 2021 (85 wickets at 6.67 for Lytham in Division 1 of the Liverpool and District Cricket Competition).

Early into the New Year (2018), Shehzad continued to shine, despite an elbow injury that hampered the latter of his 7 matches (between January and April 2018). Unfortunately, the injury halted Shehzad’s progression, as he took a year out of the game to recover before his return in April 2019.

He played 4 matches throughout the 2019 calendar year, the highlight - his 6-wicket bag against Mis Ainak Region – his fifth in first-class cricket. Unfortunately, having fully recovered COVID hit, first-class cricket was canceled in 2020 and 2021. Nevertheless, Shehzad returned towards the back-end of the year and now sits on 101 wickets at 30.07 in his 24 first-class matches played to date.

Following Zia's success in Liverpool, Shehzad followed suit last summer and, unsurprisingly, was one of the ECB Premier League's leading performers. Playing for Ormskirk, the tweaker captured a quite incredible 109 wickets with an average of 15.17 with 9 five wicket hauls. Yes, these 5-fors were impressive, but arguably one of his best outings were his figures of 3-2 from 9.1 overs against Competition powerhouse Formby.

Shehzad clearly impressed in the Liverpool League and is now eager to return to the UK for another stint in 2024*.

* Subject to playing 1 more FC match to qualify for the ISP Visa.