KABUL and West Indies cricket boards have agreed to play five ODIs and three Twenty20s in June, 2017 in West Indies in their first encounter in a full series.
“Playing with Twenty20 champions will boost technical prospects for us,” Nasimullah Danish, Afghanistan Cricket Board Chairman, said.
ACB CEO Shafiq Stanikazi thanked the West Indies cricket board to be the hosts for the series, which said was a major event featuring some of the world’s best players.
“We look forward to some very entertaining cricket in T20 and ODI. On behalf of Afghanistan Cricket Board,” said Stanikzai.
WICB’s CEO Michael Muirhead noted that the series would add to the variety of cricket their teams would be playing for the next year. “We are happy to be able to have teams visit the region to add exposure for all our players.”
The series is due to start mid-June and the specific dates and venues will be announced in due course.
Meanwhile, Afghanistan and Ireland confirmed the dates of a reciprocal tour, with both sides agreeing to play three T20Is, 5 ODIs followed by an Intercontinental Cup game in March 28-31 2017.
Recently both sides played a very competitive ODI series in Belfast with the series tied 2-2. “We have variety of fixtures and we are continuously developing Afghanistan Cricket Team international development,” Nasimullah Danish said.
He expected the nine game series against Irish as challenging and competitive. “Afghanistan had an excellent win in ODI’s against Ireland; this will be healthy practice for Afghan players to be involved in three Twenty20 and five ODIs on home ground at India.”
“We are really looking forward to hosting the Irish team, this will be great contest between well-suited teams, this series and I-Cup matches will continue close rivalry, and will also count towards qualification for the Cricket World Cup in 2019,” said Stanikzai.
Cricket Ireland Head Coach John Bracewell welcomed the series saying: “This will be a great opportunity for the squad to test themselves in nine matches across three formats.”
“Games between the sides are always competitive and I expect more of the same in this series. It’s always good for a team’s development to test themselves in different conditions, and there’s no better place than India to do that.”
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