Noor Ali Zadran

Noor Ali Zadran is a right-hand batsman and right-arm medium pacer, currently a part of the Afghan cricket team. He cites Ricky Ponting as his inspiration and cricketing hero. Ali made his international debut for the Afghnistan U-17 team against UAE in 2004. Ali made his Twenty20 debut for Afghanistan in the 2007 ACC Twenty20 Cup against Oman.

Ali was a part of the rapidly rising Afghan team from 2008 to 2009 when it was promoted to Division Two allowing them to participate in the 2009 World Cup qualifiers. He made his List A debut in the qualifiers against Denmark. In the Super Eights, he scored 122 against Canada. Later the same year, he made his ODI debut for Afghanistan against Scotland and scored 45 runs in his first match.

Ali's first-class debut also came in 2009 against Zimbabwe XI and he scored a century on debut. In Afghanistan's second innings, Ali followed up his heroics in the first innings by hitting exactly a hundred and remaining unbeaten when the match was declared a draw. During Afghanistan's 2009 Netherlands tour, Ali made a brilliant 50 in the second innings that helped his team to a one wicket victory over the opposition. He continued performing at the first-class level in the Intercontinental Cup.

He made his T20I debut in the 2010 Quadrangular Twenty20 Series in Sri Lanka. Following that he was a part of Afghanistan's victorious 2010 ICC World Twenty20 Qualifier winning squad. In the same year, he made his maiden ODI century against Canada hitting 114 in Sharjah. Since then, Ali has been an integral part of both the ODI and T20I teams for Afghanistan.

By Sonali Dhulap

As of April 2014