Razaullah Mashwani

Razaullah Mashwani was born on 5 April 2005 in Nihag, a small town in what was then Upper Dir District in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. His father, Yar Muhammad Mashwani, was posted to Mardan from 2007 onwards, and it was in Mardan that Razaullah grew up, attended school and started playing cricket. He belongs to the Mashwani tribe, one of the Pashtun tribes of northern Pakistan, and he carries that identity with quiet pride. His idol growing up was Waqar Younis, Pakistan’s legendary reverse-swing fast bowler, which tells you something about where his cricketing ambitions were always pointed.

He joined the Akmal Khan Cricket Academy in Mardan during the 2022-23 season, which gave him his first structured coaching environment. He worked his way through inter-district cricket before earning a place in the Abbottabad Region Under-19 setup. His progression was steady rather than spectacular until the 2025-26 Quaid-e-Azam Trophy changed everything.

He is representing Peshawar Region, he took 30 wickets across the tournament and added a first-class century with the bat, a combination of outputs that made him impossible to ignore. His FC bowling average of 23.91 across nine matches tells the story of a pace bowler who had already worked out how to take wickets at the highest domestic level before anyone outside cricket circles had heard of him.

Pakistan’s selectors named him in the squad for the England tour in August 2026. His Test debut came at Edgbaston on 9 September 2026 in the third and final Test, receiving his Pakistan cap number 268. What followed was one of the most talked-about debut performances in Pakistan Test cricket in years, not because the wicket count was exceptional but because of the way he bowled and what he did with the bat when Pakistan needed someone to step forward.

With the ball he was relentless. He regularly hit 92 mph, consistently over 140 km/h through his opening spells on a ground where generating that kind of pace on an English September pitch is genuinely difficult. Since 2010, only five bowlers had bowled faster in England in Test cricket: Mark Wood, Jofra Archer, Dale Steyn, Anrich Nortje and Shannon Gabriel.

Razaullah took 4 for 148 in the first innings including the wicket of Joe Root, England’s captain and best batter. That dismissal alone told Pakistan fans this was not a bowler who would be overawed by reputation or occasion.

Then came the innings nobody had scripted. Coming in at number nine with Pakistan’s lower order exposed, he hit 81 off just 63 balls, striking nine sixes. That knock equalled Tim Southee’s record for the most sixes by a debutant in a Test innings. It also equalled Ben Stokes’ record for the most sixes hit in a Test innings in England. By any measure, for a 21-year-old on debut, it was extraordinary.

The Edgbaston crowd, which had come expecting an English victory, found themselves watching something completely unexpected unfold from a fast bowler from Upper Dir who had only played nine first-class matches going into the game.