Rashid Khan led Gujarat Titans’ charge at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium in Jaipur as the defending champions outclassed last season’s beaten finalists, Rajasthan Royals, in their IPL 2023 match on Friday. Rashid rattled RR’s middle-order with the wickets of Ravichandran Ashwin, Riyan Parag, and Shimron Hetmyer. While Rashid’s reputation and exploits are well known in world cricket, his 18-year-old compatriot Noor Ahmad has also thrived for GT this season. Noor has already picked up 10 wickets in his debut IPL season, complementing Rashid in the middle overs.

Against RR, Noor bamboozled Devdutt Padikkal, before also giving Dhruv Jurel his marching orders.

Former India spinner and GT assistant coach Aashish Kapoor, who has closely watched Noor since age-group cricket, said that the youngster is a left-handed Rashid Khan.

“Not many people knew about him. For me, he was a left-handed Rashid Khan. If you want Rashid Khan at whatever amount and you’re getting another one who is a left-hander… both can be a deadly combination,” Kapoor said at the post-match press conference.

Kapoor, who played four Test and 17 ODIs for India, said that he had recommended Noor to several teams, before he eventually convinced head coach Ashish Nehra to pick the 18-year-old at the mega auction.

“I had given his (Noor Ahmad) name to lots of teams at that point in time. I told Zaheer Khan, VVS Laxman to pick this guy, he was only 17 at that point. But they did not want to. I told [Ashish] Nehra you pick whoever you want, but let me pick one guy, that’s Noor,” he added.

Noor has so far represented his country in both, ODIs and T20Is. On his T20I debut, he returned figures of 4/10 against Zimbabwe.