The Afghanistan Cricket Board, on Monday, announced their 15-man squad for the ICC Cricket World Cup 2019, to be held in England and Wales, with veteran pacer Hamid Hassan being the only surprising inclusion.
Hassan, 31, played his last One-Day International in June 2016, while his last T20I was in 2016 in India. He was indeed a part of Afghanistan's squad for the Zimbabwe series earlier this year, but he didn't get any game time.
Meanwhile, the squad will be led by Gulbadin Naib at the tournament while Asghar Afghan, who was stripped off from his role as captain just two months before the tournament, is a part of the squad. Furthermore, the criteria of selection were based through a training camp program, held at Potchefstroom in South Africa by the Afghanistan Cricket Board.
"It has been a six-month preparation process for the ICC Cricket World Cup. The mission is to play inspirational cricket in the tournament. I know there are strong teams, but we will do our level best to achieve our goals,” chief selector Dawlat Khan Ahmadzai said.
"As chief selector, it is my duty to select a competitive team. However, there were some challenges that we needed to handle. We selected the best squad considering factors such as experience, fitness, team balance, current form and conditions.
"We hope to play great cricket without any fear and with a fighting spirit in the tournament,” he added.
As many as 23 players featured and the likes of Ikram Ali Khil, Karim Janat and Sayed Shirzad failed to make the grade. The trio, however, has been named in the list of reserves. Another surprise is that as many as four players, who featured in the ODI series against Ireland earlier this year have not been picked.
The list of exclusion includes spinner Zahir Khan, batsman Javed Ahmadi and pacers Shapoor Zadran and Fareed Ahmad.
Afghanistan will begin their World Cup quest from June 1 against the defending champions, Australia.
Afghanistan squad: Gulbadin Naib (capt), Mohammad Shahzad (wk), Noor Ali Zadran, Hazratullah Zazai, Rahmat Shah, Asghar Afghan, Hashmatullah Shahidi, Najibullah Zadran, Samiullah Shinwari, Mohammad Nabi, Rashid Khan, Dawlat Zadran, Aftab Alam, Hamid Hassan, Mujeeb ur Rahman
