The Afghanistan National Cricket Team represents the country of Afghanistan at international cricket matches. Despite being a popular sport n the country, it was only in 1995 that the Afghanistan Cricket Federation came into being and that meant that cricket began to be played more seriously. The federation gained the affiliation with the ICC (International Cricket Council) in 2001. In 2003, the federation became a member of the Asian Cricket Council.
The Afghanistan side showed a meteoric rise in international cricket. They went from Division Five of the ICC World Cup qualifiers to Division One without being relegated even once and took on the likes of Ireland, Scotland and Kenya with much aplomb. They finished fifth in the Division One qualifiers, which meant that they failed to make it to the World Cup of 2011, where only four teams went through, but they had obtained the ODI status.
Then, they were invited to play in the World T20 Cup qualifiers, through which they managed to make it through to the World T20 of 2010 along with Ireland. They lost to both, South Africa and India, but acquitted themselves well for first-timers at the international stage.
| Country |
Afghanistan
|
| Founded | 1995 |
| Captain | Hashmatullah Shaidi |
| Coach | Jonathan Trott |
| Follow This Team | |
As in June 2011, Afghanistan is clearly one of the two best Associate nations in the cricket world, the other being Ireland. If they can continue to play the way that they have been in recent times, they could end up taking the world by storm.
