Afghanistan Cricket Board (ACB) have announced their 15-member squad for the 2019 ICC Cricket World Cup, which starts from May 30th May 2019. Afghanistan are scheduled to face Australia in their first match on Jun 01st, 2019.
The squad is almost the same look which played their bi-lateral series against Ireland in India few months ago. Hamid Hassan makes a comeback into the national fold after an absence of more than 3 years due to various injuries sustained after 2016.
Afghanistan made surprise decisions few days ahead of the squad announcement with changes to their leadership roles, with Gulbadin Naib chosen as the captain, replacing Asghar Afghan.
"All of us have one goal: we want to play for Afghanistan and play as a team, whoever the captain is."
Despite the recent leadership change, new Afghanistan skipper Gulbadin Naib says his team are all pulling in one direction ahead of #CWC19.https://t.co/THWKwcdCk9
— ICC Cricket World Cup (@cricketworldcup) May 24, 2019
Afghanistan will play their official World Cup warm-up matches against Pakistan on 24th May at Bristol and against England on 27th May at The Oval. The National squad played a solitary ODI in Scotland and 2 more ODI’s in Ireland prior to travelling to England.
The fact remains that Afghanistan have not faced their other nine opponents much on a regular basis. They faced West Indies in the World Cup Qualifiers, while they faced their Asian counterparts in 2018 Asia Cup. Still, not much to be written about when it comes to playing the other FM countries regularly in the ODI format.
Other than Rashid Khan, Mohammad Nabi and Mujeeb ur Rahman, the rest of the squad haven’t had the opportunities to play against most of the players representing the other countries in the various T20 leagues as well. So, they are untested, yes and definitely inexperienced in playing high profile ICC tournament matches, but the untested part of their armory is what the other members will be vary about when they face the Blue Tigers.
Afghanistan’s bowling department is definitely their strongest suit when compared to their batting department, and that fact will be well kept in mind by Gulbadin Naib and Phil Simmons during the course of the tournament.
Afghanistan Squad:
Gulbadin Naib (Captain), Mohammad Shahzad, Noor Ali Zadran, Hazratullah Zazai, Rahmat Shah, Asghar Afghan, Hashmatullah Shahidi, Najibullah Zadran, Samiullah Shinwari, Mohammad Nabi, Rashid Khan, Dawlat Zadran, Aftab Alam, Hamid Hassan & Mujeeb Ur Rahman
