Asghar Afghan re-appointed Afghanistan captain in all formats by Afghanistan Cricket Board (ACB)

Middle Order batsman Asghar Afghan has been reappointed captain of Afghanistan cricket team across all three formats, the Afghanistan Cricket Board (ACB) has announced on 11 December 2019. This landmark decision was taken by the ACB post consultation with the top management as per its official confirmation.

Afghan will replace Rashid Khan, who was appointed captain across formats in July, after Afghanistan lost all their matches at the World Cup 2019 under Gulbadin Naib. Rashid will now become Afghan’s deputy.

Asghar Afghan has captained the Afghanistan national team for a very long time and was removed from his post in a controversial manner prior to the ICC World Cup 2019. The decision came in for criticism publicly from top players such as Mohammad Nabi and Rashid Khan.

Rahmat Shah was then appointed as the captain for Test matches by the ACB while Gulbadin Naib got the top job for ODIs. Rashid Khan was appointed as the captain for T20Is by the ACB as well. Yet, post the poor performance from Afghanistan in the 2019 ICC World Cup where they failed to win a single match, Rashid Khan became the captain for all formats. Afghanistan did pull off a shock 2-1 win over the West Indies in their T20I series sometime earlier but were defeated 3-0 in the ODIs. They also lost the one-off Test match which led the ACB to take this decision.

Asghar Afghan had captained the team in 56 one day internationals and won 36 of them while losing just 21. They had also managed to tie a game against India in the Asia Cup last year.

Afghan is among the most experienced players in Afghanistan side, with 181 international appearances across formats, 104 of them as captain. Afghanistan played their inaugural Test match under him, against India in Bengaluru in June 2018.