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2019 a meltdown moment for cricket in Afghanistan

2019 a meltdown moment for cricket in Afghanistan

author avatar
1 Jan 2020 - 16:21
2019 a meltdown moment for cricket in Afghanistan
author avatar
1 Jan 2020 - 16:21

KABUL (Pajhwok): Afghanistan’s participation in the World Cup 2019 is considered a huge achievement but the year has not much for cricket fans to cheer about.

Good news at the beginning of last year was Afghanistan’s direct qualification to the Twenty20 World Cup, which will be played in Australia this year.

International Matches in 2019

Afghanistan cricket team participated in the World Cup last year but due to internal rifts in the national squad, Afghanistan lost all their pool matches.

Afghanistan played Test, One Day International and Twenty/20 matches against Irland, Bangladesh, the West Indies, and Zimbabwe.

Afghanistan played 16 ODIs, in which the men in blue won four and lost 14. Afghanistan lost nine games in the World Cup alone.

Afghanistan, however, shined in Tests and Twenty matches. They won test matches against Bangladesh and Ireland and lost to West Indies. Afghanistan played 10 twenty/20 games in which they won seven and lost three.

Changes in administration and team

In 2019, some changes happened in the cricket administration as well as in the team. Azizullah Fazli was appointed as chairman of the Afghanistan Cricket Board (ACB) and after few months in office, he was fired and replaced with the incumbent Chairman FarhanYousufzai.

Initially, Asadullah Khalid was appointed as the Executive Director of the board before he was replaced by Lotfullah Stanikzai last year.

In the cricket team, Asghan Afghan was replaced as captain by Gulbuddin Naib for ODI, Rashid Khan for twenty20 matches and Rahmat Shah for the test matches.

After the fresh appointments, the players developed serious differences among themselves. National team’s heroes Mohammad Nabi and Rashid Khan through their tweets showed their opposition to the appointment of Gulbuddin as the new captain.

As a result of the differences, the national side miserably failed in the World Cup last year and lost all their group matches and performed badly.

Besides bad performance, injuries and other issues hurt the national side. Wicketkeeper and batsman Mohammad Shazad was sent back to Afghanistan over weak fitness.

Soon after landing in Kabul, Shahzad told reporters that he was fully fit and he felt the victim of a conspiracy.

Internal problems and rifts

In 2019, the Alkozai Company revoked its contract and millions of dollars financial support to the cricket board. The company claimed that some ACB officials made illegal demands.

The Afghanistan Primer League was canceled and the cricket board referred corruption-related cases to the Attorney General Office. The Indian Company Snixer Sports also revoked its contract for the league.

The cricket board removed heads of some zones who protested against the ACB and held demonstrations. The Ireland Cricket Board also revoked its scheduled games with Afghanistan.

Cricket affairs expert Emal Pasarlay said that 2019 was not a good year for Afghanistan’s cricket.

“Changes in the ACB administration and team’s captain had become the talk of the town and international journalists mock such news,” he said.

He added before and after the World Cup, some decisions showed personal interests were held supreme by a number of individuals over national interest.

He said, “I had shared my prediction that Afghanistan would lose all games in the World Cup before the start of the mega event with The Guardian Newspaper.”

He said winning the test match against Bangladesh and joining the side by Noor Ahmad, Ibrahim Zadran and Rahmanullah Gurbaz were two good news of the year.

He hoped cricket officials would prefer national interests instead of personal interests in the New Year.

Writer and Journalist Matiullah Abid said Afghan fans had huge expectations from their national team in 2019.

He said playing the World Cup was a pride for the entire nation but the pride was changed into national damage because of differences of some players with the captain.

According to Abid, wrong decisions led to the disappointment of cricket lovers in the country.

KhushalTouib, sports journalists federation head, told Pajhwok that last year was not good for the Afghan cricket at all.

He said due to efforts of Afghan players and ACB, Afghanistan gained ICC full membership in last year and attracted Afghan fans love to the World Cup.

On the other hand, some political interferences and changes in ACB also put negative impact as the ACB also complained about political interference in their affairs.

Badaam Ahmadzai, another cricket reporter, said last year was not a good year for the Afghan cricket all because of the conflicts among players.

He blamed President Ashraf Ghani for not appointing talented figures to ACB and called for some overhauling at the board to recover the damages of last year.

Farid Hotak, ACB spokesman, told Pajhwok that the Afghan team had achievements on the international level and won few matches in 2019.

Nh/Pk/ma

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