ICC World Cup 2023: Afghanistan National Cricket Team Full Squad

The Afghanistan men’s national cricket team (Pashto: د افغانستان کرکټ ملي لوب‌‌‌‌‌‌ډله, Persian: تیم ملی کریکت افغانستان) represents Afghanistan in international cricket. Cricket has been played in Afghanistan since the mid-19th century, but it was only in the early 21st century that the national team began to enjoy success. The Afghanistan Cricket Board was formed in 1995 and became an affiliate member of the International Cricket Council (ICC) in 2001 and a member of the Asian Cricket Council (ACC) in 2003. After nearly a decade of playing international cricket, on 22 June 2017, at an ICC meeting in London, full ICC Membership (and therefore Test status) was granted to Afghanistan. Alongside Ireland, this took the number of Test cricket playing nations to twelve. It is the first country to ever achieve Full Member status after holding Affiliate Membership of the ICC.

The team is ranked 10th in Twenty20 International (T20I) cricket as of February 2023, and holds the world record for the highest ever T20I score, with their score of 278/3 against Ireland at Dehradun on 23 February 2019.

In August 2021, concerns and doubts were raised over the participation of the Afghanistan national cricket team in the future international matches ever since Afghanistan was brought under the control of the Taliban. Concerns were raised over the safety of Afghan national cricketers and their families who were still in Afghanistan during the Taliban takeover on 15 August 2021. As of 31 August 2021, three of the Afghanistan women’s national cricket team had evacuated to Canada, while the others were afraid of how they, as women, would be treated by the Taliban.

Taliban spokesmen stated that the Taliban would not disrupt the men’s cricket team’s participation in international matches and that they would allow Afghanistan to play its first ever bilateral series against Pakistan in Sri Lanka which was scheduled to start in September 2021. The Pakistan Cricket Board announced in August 2021 that the tour would be rescheduled to 2022. This was later moved to 2023 and the tour took place between 24 – 27 March 2023.

Despite the political turmoil, Afghanistan cricket team’s media manager Hikmat Hassan confirmed that Afghanistan would participate in the 2021 ICC Men’s T20 World Cup.