President Ashraf Ghani on Tuesday introduced two senior cabinet members Hamid Tahmasi, the minister of transport, and Kamil Sediqi, the deputy minister of commerce, as new members of the Afghanistan Cricket Board (ACB).
The two new appointments will take over from Abdul Ali Mohammadi, former adviser to Ghani and Salma Sadat, a national investor.
“The general cricket board of the country has other members, including Eklil Hakimi, Sayed Mansoor Naderi, Jawed Sangdil, Abdul Rahman Alokozai, Hekmat Khalil Karzai and Atif Mashal, who decide on important matters related to the country’s cricket,” said Farid Hotak, ACB spokesman.
“This is quite useful for cricket’s future,” said Nazim Jar Abdulrahimzai, development officer for the ACB.
Afghanistan Cricket Board was established in 1995. It was granted affiliate membership by the International Cricket Council (ICC) in 2001 – which marked the beginning of an incredible journey in the history of Afghanistan’s cricket.
In 2003 the country was granted associate membership of the Asian Cricket Council (ACC).
In 2015, Afghanistan was inducted in ICC Future Tours Program (FTP) making it possible for Afghanistan to play FTP teams. Afghanistan also broke into the ICC 12-team ODI rankings.
In the same year, Afghanistan secured victories in both ODI series in T20I series and were ranked 10th in ICC ODI rankings and 9th in ICC T20I rankings.
Afghanistan made history by becoming the first associate nation to beat a full member nation in a bilateral series against Zimbabwe. ACB reciprocated the series by hosting Zimbabwe for the first time in both ODI and T20I series in Sharjah in 2015/16 delivering similar results.
In 2016, Afghanistan participated in its fourth consecutive ICC World Twenty20 in India and it was their qualification to the Super-10 stage in this tournament and the subsequent win against the ultimate champion, West Indies, which particularly distinguished Afghanistan’s participation in the 2016 ICC World Twenty20 from previous tournaments.
Afghanistan U-19 participated in the ICC U-19 World Cup in Bangladesh and emerged as the Plate Champion of the tournament.
In June last year Afghanistan cricket achieved one of its biggest goals and was granted Full Member status the ICC, meaning they are now a Test-playing nation.