Afghanistan captain Asghar Stanikzai has upped the ante ahead of his country’s inaugural Test against India by claiming his team have better spinners than India.

The Afghans will take on India in Bengaluru from June 14 and they are confident of giving Indian batsmen a tough time as they have in-form spinners in Rashid Khan and Mujeeb ur Rahman who were on fire during the recently concluded IPL.

For the record, India spinners Ravindra Jadeja and Ravi Ashwin are ranked fourth and fifth in the ICC rankings for Test bowlers.

“The whole world knows that we have good spinners in Rashid Khan, Mujeeb, Mohammad Nabi, Rahmat Shah, Zahir Khan,” Stanikzai was quoted as saying by ESPNcricinfo. “In Afghanistan, the brilliant thing is that a lot of the young talent that is coming through are spinners, because they all follow Rashid, they follow Nabi. So because of that our spin department is very strong. In my opinion, we have good spinners, better spinners than India.”

India will be without regular captain Virat Kohli, who is out due to a back injury, and wicketkeeper Wriddhiman Saha who has a finger injury.