CoA says no to the inclusion of Afghanistan players in domestic matches, agrees to include them in training camps

The Board of Control for Cricket in India has in the past provided immense help to the Afghanistan Cricket Board to ensure their development as a cricket-playing nation. Be it providing them cricket stadiums to use as home grounds or playing against them in the country’s first-ever Test match, the two have shared a very close relationship as far as the sport is concerned. Keeping the same in mind, Afghanistan had asked permission from the BCCI to have their players participate in the Indian domestic season as a means to garner experience considering the limited cricketing opportunities present for the players back home.

However, the Committee of Administrators in its latest meeting played down the request citing no explicit reasons, simply stating that “it will not be possible for BCCI to include players from Afghanistan in the domestic matches/tournaments organised by BCCI.” Not long ago, the committee had also denied Afghanistan from holding it's domestic T20 league in the country after the country had hosted the first edition of the same last year in Sharjah.

Afghanistan managed to make quite an impact in the recently concluded World Cup by coming very close to beating some world-class teams, including India and eventual runners up New Zealand. However, if there is one thing that stopped them from achieving even greater things is the lack of exposure and experience of the players. In an attempt to help them work towards the same, the CoA has allowed Afghan players to be present in its training camps and other such programmes conducted by the BCCI.

Further, it has stated that it will consider granting an alternate venue to the country where it can play its international matches provided it doesn’t disrupt the Indian domestic calendar. Lucknow is the most likely venue to be offered to them. Afghanistan usually uses Dehradun and Greater Noida as home venues but had communicated it finds both of these places a bit inconvenient.