The Brisbane Heat have broken through for their first Big Bash League win of the season and it was their 17-year-old Afghani spinner starring at the centre of it.
The Heat took on the Perth Scorchers on Saturday, needing a win after three losses to open their campaign, and Mujeeb Ur Rahman delivered for captain Chris Lynn.
Rahman proved the difference between the two teams, with the teenager taking 2-10.
He delivered 16 dot balls while having a man more than double his age, Michael Klinger, out stumped.
Rahman also claimed the big wicket of Scorchers captain Mitch Marsh.
Heat veteran Brendon McCullum can't speak highly enough of the way he has fitted in coming from Afghanistan.
"He's really quiet but he's a great guy. I still find it incredibly courageous from him to fly the nest and come all the way over from Afghanistan to embed himself in a foreign environment for two months at his age," McCullum said.
"The performances he is putting up are deserving of his efforts and courage to do so. He's a great member of our side. He doesn't say a lot, but the boys enjoy him and obviously when he performs like that, it's certainly easier to get right in behind him."
Mujeeb doesn't need to say much when his bowling does all the talking for him.
"I'm very excited to be named Player of the Match. I'm very excited," Mujeeb said.
"I am really enjoying it very much. Australia is a country I'm very impressed by and my teammates, I am really enjoying everything about it."
Rahman is the second teenage spinner from an emerging cricket nation to make his mark in this BBL season.
Nepal's Melbourne Stars leggie Sandeep Lamichhane had been the find of the BBL season in his first four games, taking eight wickets.
But the 18-year-old has now gone to the Bangladesh Premier League to play for the Sylhet Sixers under captain David Warner.
