KABUL: The Afghan cricket team will face Pakistan for a white-ball series in September ahead of the T20 World Cup in 2021, officials at the Afghanistan Cricket Board (ACB) said on Monday.
The three-match series, which includes three One-Day Internationals (ODI) and an equal number of Twenty20s, will be held in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
“It’s very important for both countries,” Farid Hotak, ACB media officer, told Arab News, saying the winner of the series would have a better ranking in the World Cup.
He said the Pakistan series would be followed by cricket matches against Australia, India, and the West Indies.
“It is part of the ODI league matches to qualify for the World Cup 2021,” ACB Director Raees Ahmadzai said. “We played three matches already with Ireland and won all three.”
Both Hotak and Ahmadzai rejected media reports the cricket matches were a result of a meeting between Afghan cricketer Mohammad Nabi and Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan earlier this year when Khan vowed to ensure a cricket series between the two neighbors.
Several Afghans, residing as refugees in Pakistan for the past few decades, have learnt to play the sport in the neighboring country, enjoying global success in recent years by defeating more experienced and renowned cricketing nations.
Afghan cricket players, especially the likes of Rashid Khan, Mohammad Nabi and Golbadin Naib, have become a source of pride for the war-torn nation, both at home and abroad.
A recent escalation in violence across Afghanistan – part of decades of conflict in the war-ravaged nation – has also impacted the country’s gaming sector, with a number of sporting events, including cricket matches, coming under attack.
In May 2018, at least eight people were killed and dozens injured in a series of blasts during a cricket match in the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad. In September 2017, a suicide bomber blew himself up at a checkpoint near the main cricket stadium in the Afghan capital Kabul, killing at least three people as a tournament was under way.
Afghanistan to play white-ball series against Pakistan in UAE in September
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Afghanistan to play white-ball series against Pakistan in UAE in September
- The three-match series includes three One-Day Internationals and an equal number of Twenty20s
- Pakistan series to be followed by cricket matches against Australia, India, and West Indies
Pakistani politicians urge dialogue with Imran Khan’s party as PM offers talks
- National Dialogue Committee group organizes summit attended by prominent lawyers, politicians and journalists in Islamabad
- Participants urge government to lift alleged ban on political activities and media restrictions, form committee for negotiations
ISLAMABAD: Participants of a meeting featuring prominent politicians, lawyers and civil society members on Wednesday urged the government to initiate talks with former prime minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, lift alleged bans on political activities after Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif recently invited the PTI for talks.
The summit was organized by the National Dialogue Committee (NDC), a political group formed last month by former PTI members Chaudhry Fawad Husain, ex-Sindh governor Imran Ismail and Mehmood Moulvi. The NDC has called for efforts to ease political tensions in the country and facilitate dialogue between the government and Khan’s party.
The development takes place amid rising tensions between the PTI and Pakistan’s military and government. Khan, who remains in jail on a slew of charges he says are politically motivated, blames the military and the government for colluding to keep him away from power by rigging the 2024 general election and implicating him in false cases. Both deny his allegations.
Since Khan was ousted in a parliamentary vote in April 2022, the PTI has complained of a widespread state crackdown, while Khan and his senior party colleagues have been embroiled in dozens of legal cases. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif last month invited the PTI for talks during a meeting of the federal cabinet, saying harmony among political forces was essential for the country’s progress.
“The prime objective of the dialogue is that we want to bring the political temperatures down,” Ismail told Arab News after the conference concluded.
“At the moment, the heat is so much that people— especially in politics— they do not want to sit across the table and discuss the pertaining issues of Pakistan which is blocking the way for investment.”
Former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, who heads the Awaam Pakistan political party, attended the summit along with Jamaat-e-Islami senior leader Liaquat Baloch, Muttahida Quami Movement-Pakistan’s Waseem Akhtar and Haroon Ur Rashid, president of the Supreme Court Bar Association. Journalists Asma Shirazi and Fahd Husain also attended the meeting.
Members of the Pakistan Peoples Party, the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and the PTI did not attend the gathering.
The NDC urged Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, President Asif Ali Zardari and PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif to initiate talks with the opposition. It said after the government forms its team, the NDC will announce the names of the opposition negotiating team after holding consultations with its jailed members.
“Let us create some environment. Let us bring some temperatures down and then we will do it,” Ismail said regarding a potential meeting with the jailed Khan.
Muhammad Ali Saif, a former adviser to the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chief minister, told participants of the meeting that Pakistan was currently in a “dysfunctional state” due to extreme political polarization.
“The tension between the PTI and the institutions, particularly the army, at the moment is the most fundamental, the most prominent and the most crucial issue,” Saif noted.
‘CHANGED FACES’
The summit proposed six specific confidence-building measures. These included lifting an alleged ban on political activities and the appointment of the leaders of opposition in Pakistan’s Senate and National Assembly.
The joint communique called for the immediate release of women political prisoners, such as Khan’s wife Bushra Bibi and PTI leader Yasmin Rashid, and the withdrawal of cases against supporters of political parties.
The communiqué also called for an end to media censorship and proposed that the government and opposition should “neither use the Pakistan Armed Forces for their politics nor engage in negative propaganda against them.”
Amir Khan, an overseas Pakistani businessperson, complained that frequent political changes in the country had undermined investors’ confidence.
“I came here with investment ideas, I came to know that faces have changed after a year,” Amir Khan said, referring to the frequent change in government personnel.
Khan’s party, on the other hand, has been calling for a “meaningful” political dialogue with the government.
However, it has accused the government of denying PTI members meetings with Khan in the Rawalpindi prison where he remains incarcerated.
“For dialogue to be meaningful, it is essential that these authorized representatives are allowed regular and unhindered access to Imran Khan so that any engagement accurately reflects his views and PTI’s collective position,” PTI leader Azhar Leghari told Arab News last week.
