ICC full membership status top priority: Danish

KABUL Cricket Board (ACB) new chairman Nasimullah Danish on Tuesday said efforts at attaining International Cricket Council (ICC) full membership status would be among his top priorities.

Few days ago, President Ashraf Ghani issued a decree appointing Danish as the ACB chairman, replacing Shahzada Massoud.

Danish has previously served as deputy CEO and deputy chairman of the game’s regularity authority.

In an exclusive interview with Pajhwok Afghan News, the chairman said his efforts would be focused on enabling the cricket team to attain full ICC membership.

Afghanistan is currently associate member of ICC.

However, Danish said the full membership status required a lot of work and the national side and the under-19 crew had to make big achievements in international events. The Afghans needed to play the world’s best sides besides strengthening domestic cricket, he said.

In this regard, Danish explained they had started work on a 10-year plan, which prioritised attaining the full membership status.

“An important part of this plan is meeting all the needed things to attain the full membership.”

Danish said other objectives of the 10-year plan were construction of cricket stadiums that met international standards, arranging best performance training programmes for players in foreign countries and hiring services of international coaches.

He said there were currently two international standard cricket grounds in Afghanistan and work on similar stadiums was underway in Khost, Kandahar and Kunduz provinces.

Danish said they planned to promote cricket in northern provinces and in this regard, cricket training academies and small grounds were being established in Baghlan, Badakhshan, Balkh and other provinces.

About the World Cup 2015 in Australia and New Zealand, Danish said they had set up an independent and experienced selection committee to name the national side for the mega event.

The committee a day earlier announced a 15-man squad for the World Cup under captaincy of Nabi Issakhel.

Danish said the World Cup squad had been named after assessments and discussions lasting several days.

He said the ACB leadership and other high officials had no role in the selection of players for the World Cup and the side had been purely chosen by the selection committee.

To a question that some experienced players had been dropped, Danish said the question should be asked from the selection committee.

He said the selection committee included two foreign coaches, local mentors and former senior players, who had picked the side keeping the national interest supreme.

Preparations in the lead up to the World Cup lasted several months as the national side was sent to Australia and New Zealand for training sessions months ahead of the World Cup and the side had good achievements there, the chairman said.

He said Afghanistan would play four one-day matches against Scotland and Ireland in the United Arab Emirates in near future and the matches would prove beneficial for the team in their preparations for the World Cup.

Danish also hailed positive steps the previous ACB leadership had taken and vowed to continue efforts promoting cricket in Afghanistan.

He said currently all their efforts were concentrated on the World Cup and after the event, they would try to enhance relations with full member nations and ink with them accords concerning all formats of the game.

“We can attain the full membership status if we play more and more matches with best sides. Initially, it does not matter if we don’t have achievements, but these matches can help increase experience of our players.”

Danish urged the government to politically and financially support the national side in making foreign tours, saying the Afghan cricketers could not make gains on international level until they lacked their government’s support.

He suggested an ACB official should accompany the president or other high officials on their foreign trips so that the cricket official could discuss cooperation with his foreign counterparts.

ma