This was confirmed by Dr Noor Mohammad Murad, the CEO of Afghanistan Cricket.
Despite the Afghanistan Cricket Board (ACB) had the major backing of the BCCI for the participation in the Asia Cup this year, the team was denied the permission to play a few practice matches in India ahead of the tournament, it is learnt here.
This was confirmed by Dr. Noor Mohammad Murad, the CEO of Afghanistan Cricket.
Speaking exclusively over his mobile from Kabul, he said, “We made number of requests to the Indian cricket board to allow our boys to play few matches in India, preferably in Mumbai before the Asia Cup. However, our repeated requests yielded no results and we had to look at some other venues in Sri Lanka”.
The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) had initially threatened to boycott the Asia Cup in Bangladesh, the Asian Cricket Council (ACC) whose president is India’s N. Srinivasan, included the Afghanistan team’s first ever participation.
“Our team played few matches in Hambantota before flying out to Dubai from where the team was scheduled to leave for Bangladesh”, the CEO added.
“We seek BCCI support for our team’s future. We have also requested the Indian cricket board to suggest a few names for coaching positions. At present, we have hired the services of Umesh Patwal as batting coach for the Asia Cup”.
Umesh Patwal is one of the Directors of India’s Global Cricket School.
