The Afghanistan Cricket Board(ACB) has confirmed that all cricketing activities will be on schedule, as there hasn’t been any interference from anyone. Despite the Taliban capturing Kabul, the Afghanistan team will honour all their cricketing assignments.
ACB chief executive chairman, Hamid Shinwari, in an interview with the Indian Express, has said that all the players and officials are safe. They are planning for a third camp before the team flies off to Sri Lanka next week.
Shinwari has said to IndianExpress, “We are going there (Sri Lanka) and playing Pakistan for a series. The overall situation is great (in Afghanistan). It was like, two days was needed for regime change and at that time people were in fear, but now we have normal traffic for people and other official activity. Most probably, all offices will be open from tomorrow.”
He also reiterated that the situation was under control and that all is well with cricket. There has been no interference yet from anyone, in regards to cricketing activities and they had support from “there” too and everything will be on schedule.
Their main cricketers, Rashid Khan and Mohammad Nabi are not in their home country. Rashid is playing the Hundred, in England but his family is in Kabul. Nabi is in Dubai but had tweeted about the situation five days back where he appealed for peace and asked for world leaders to come together for it.
Shinwari said that even the Taliban “supports” cricket when asked about whether the new regime will have any effect on cricket. He further said that cricketers will not be harmed and in 20 years, there hasn’t been a single casualty. Shinwari even said that the common people do not care about the regime but care about feeding their kids and stressed that the situation is better now.
The ACB is looking forward to the tour of Sri Lanka where they will play Pakistan. They have appointed Shaun Tait as the new bowling coach and are looking at Hashan Tilakaratne as the new batting coach. They, already, have former South African rounder, Lance Klusener as their head coach. They are all confirmed to be traveling to Sri Lanka.
