The Afghanistan Cricket Board have said that they are planning to re-launch the Afghanistan Premier League, country’s franchise-based T20 tournament that was postponed after the inaugural edition, in 2025.
Balkh Legends won the inaugural edition of APL that was played by five franchises in UAE in 2018 and since then a lot of moves were made to re-launch the tournament though all the efforts went in vain.
However, ACB chief executive Naseeb Khan is confident of hosting the tournament at some time after the next edition of the Indian Premier League considering they could not re-launch it this season due to their busy domestic and international schedule. “We are determined to re-launch the APL and working on it to make that happen,” Naseeb told Cricbuzz recently.
“We are hoping to start the tournament from next year as this year we don’t have much time because of our international commitments and domestic schedule and so we are hoping to re launch the APL at some time after the next IPL,” he said.
“We had a bidding process and lot of companies showed interest and now we had shortlisted some companies from the long list and now we will put it in the board and after getting approval we will start our next course of action,” he said.
“This year we have series against Zimbabwe, New Zealand and we have Emerging Asia Cup and tri-series of Under-19 and Under-19 Asia Cup so the schedule is very busy so it (APL season 2) cannot be hosted this year but next year we are eyeing to re-launch it,” he said.
Even though the Bangladesh Cricket Board recently hinted that the series against Afghanistan in July might not happen, the ACB chief executive remains optimistic. BCB had earlier announced that their all-format away series against Afghanistan in July has been rescheduled. ACB was expected to host Bangladesh for two Tests, three ODIs and three T20Is following the T20 World Cup.
Later, the ACB prepared a new itinerary for BCB and according to that draft itinerary seen by Cricbuzz, three ODIs and as many T20Is are scheduled to be played in Greater Noida between July 25 and August 6.
Cricbuzz understands that the series is unlikely to take place in July and BCB is expected to let their counterparts know their stand in the coming days. According to Naseeb, they don’t have any other time to host the white-ball series apart from this July that is part of the Future Tours Programme.
“Till now we have only confirmed the venue and we are talking regarding dates. The series is expected to be host in July as we only have this window and they also have only this window,” said Naseeb. “We have two Tests and there is heat during that point of time so we want to play the two Tests later but now we want to play the three ODIs and three T20Is in July.”
Whether the white ball series takes place or not against Bangladesh, Naseeb is happy to get back Greater Noida as their home venue. The BCCI had allotted two venues – one in Kanpur and one in Greater Noida- as the home venue of Afghanistan recently. The Afghanistan team played its ‘home’ games mostly in the United Arab Emirates in the recent past but now they are ready to host teams in India.
“India was our home ground before and we feel Greater Noida is our home ground. This is very important because the agreement that we had (with BCCI) three years back was renewed,” said Naseeb. “We are expected to host New Zealand and we are expected to host West Indies before the Champions Trophy though I am not sure whether we will host them here or elsewhere,” he said.
“You have seen in the World Cup that we have done well in Indian conditions and getting Greater Noida as our home ground is very important for us. We have renewed till Champions Trophy but we are working on it to extend it.”