Afghanistan Premier League could be moved to India
dubai — The Afghanistan Premier League which is about to begin from October 5 at the Sharjah Cricket Stadium, could in a few years be moved to India, it was revealed by an official of the Afghanistan Cricket Board (ACB).
“We are thinking on those lines in the future,” said Basheer Stanikzai, the APL tournament director and director of cricket at ACB.
“For a few years it will be conducted in the UAE because we have a lot of supporters here. Although when we played the last series versus Bangladesh in Dehradun (India), we felt like we were playing in Kabul. The way the people supported us was unbelievable, so it’s a plan to speak to the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) to take our League to India,” Stanikzai added.
With just a few weeks to go for the first match, the tournament suffered a minor hiccup after Mohammed Shahzad was approached to underperform in a tournament prior to the Asia Cup. The Afghan wicketkeeper-batsman immediately reported the incident to the team’s management, who in turn informed the ICC.
“He was suspicious. It wasn’t actually a corrupt approach, but he felt he should report it,” Stanikzai said on the sidelines of an Asia Cup match.
Basheer was confident that such an incident won’t affect the APL.
“Well, nothing will happen to APL. We have educated our players. If there is any suspicion they have every right to report it. It wasn’t that serious, but we told him to report it.
“I can give you one example from the past. A guy asked me what will happen tomorrow in the game. It was a similar type of thing. When they investigated, there was nothing about it.”
Basheer sounded confident when he said the League will be free of corruption. “For this League we are fortunate we have the services of the ICC’s Anti- Corruption Unit. They are handling it, along with our anti-corruption unit.”
Kabul, Nangarhar, Kandahar, Balkh and Paktia are the five teams participating in the league which will be played over 17 days.