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Cricket won’t be a setback in the wake of radical political change in Afghanistan, guaranteed nation’s cricket board CEO Hamid Shinwari, saying the Taliban ‘love’ and ‘support’ the game. Addressing PTI, Hamid Shinwari additionally guaranteed that the individuals from the national team and their families are protected as the Taliban assumed control over the reins of the country.
Rashid Khan, Mohammed Nabi and Mujeeb Zadran are playing in the UK in The Hundred competition. “Taliban loves cricket. They have supported us since the beginning. They did not interfere in our activities,” said Hamid Shinwari.
“I don’t see any interference and expect support so that our cricket can move forward. We have got an active chairman, I remain CEO until further notice,” added the top Afghanistan Cricket Board official. Cricket’s rise in the country coincided with Taliban’s rule between 1996 and 2001 with many Afghan refugees in neighbouring Pakistan picking up the sport.
“It can be said that cricket flourished during the Taliban era. “It is also a fact that many of our players practised in Peshawar and they made the sport mainstream in Afghanistan,” he said.
“The good thing is that we are heading towards normalcy. The people have started working. We will resume our office from tomorrow and the national camp, which was underway ahead of the Pakistan series in Sri Lanka will also resume after a two-day break with the change in regime,” he added.
Discussing the players’ security, he said: “Other than four or five players who are playing overseas the rest are all in Kabul. Like I said, they are safe and doing fine.”
Hamid Shinwari said all their planned respective series stay on target and every one of the three IPL bound players—Rashid, Nabi and Mujeeb—have NOCs from the board to partake in the Indian Premier League ahead of the T20 World Cup. We don’t see any cricketing activity suffering with the change of regime,” he concluded.
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