Sharjah: A top official of the Afghanistan Cricket Board (ACB) has predicted the rise of their national squad in all formats of the sport in the near future.
“We have marked our presence in all formats of the game. We are a force in T20 cricket and in the ODIs already. Now, we need to invest some time and energy in Test cricket and raise our level there as well,” he told Gulf News on the sidelines of the ongoing inaugural Afghanistan Premier League (APL) at the Sharjah Cricket Stadium.
“We need some more investment in the longer version of the game. We played a Test match against India and that was a good learning curve for us. No doubt we were defeated heavily, but we are taking a lot of positives out of this result,” he added.
India hosted Afghanistan in Bengaluru in mid-June for the latter’s debut Test match that saw the hosts winning by an innings and 262 runs under two days. “Making our Test debut against the best team in the world was a deliberate move as we wanted to really test ourselves and see where we stand. The defeat was a real good lesson and we want to learn from that experience,” Stanikzai insisted.
The ACB has next lined up matches against Zimbabwe, West Indies, Australia and possibly England as well in an attempt to tread the learning curve for its national team.
“We have been charting our course in the world of international cricket. You can be sure that Afghanistan will be a force to reckon with in the next three to four years in all formats of the game,” he said.
Stanikzai further reiterated that the ongoing APL is part of the plan in assuring Afghanistan’s arrival on the big stage when the 2019 ICC Cricket World Cup is played in England.
“This league [APL] is not just for the ACB to earn something. Our main aim is to give our domestic cricketers an ideal platform where they can display their talent on the global stage. At the same time, they will also get financially stable while rubbing shoulders with some of the game’s greats. This league is a huge platform for Afghanistan cricket to develop,” he insisted.
“As per cricketing pundits, Afghanistan was the second best team in the recent Asia Cup. We dominated all the other sides and yet we did not reach the final. But that is not an issue as we have the ICC World Cup in England next year where I believe we could be among the favourites,” Stanikzai added.
