Afghan cricket team will greatly benefit from its four week training tour of Pakistan by attending National Cricket Academy’s coaching programmes besides playing one and T-20 matches. This was stated by Director Games development, NCA, Intikhab Alam at a news conference flanked by captain of the Afghan team,Kabir Khan and manager Nouraiz Mangal here on Monday at Gadaffi stadium. Senior general manager, NCA, Ali Zia was also present.
Intikhab said the prime aim of Afghan team’s tour is to build their team for the World Cup Qualifying round to be held in March. “ Our experienced coaches will be imparting finer points of the game to bring improvement in the batting, fielding and bowling of the players to prepare them for the Qualifying rounds to get productive results “,said the NCA official.
He said apart from attending the training programme at NCA the Afghan team will also be playing 8 one-day games and 4 T-20 matches against Pakistan A team to get much useful competitive practice ahead of their participation in the qualifying rounds.
Afghan teams captain described the training programme at NCA “ very important “ in order to lift the fortune of their team by overcoming flaws in different departments of the game.
“ It is a very good opportunity for our players to learn from coaches at NCA “,he said adding “ We are focusing on preparation of the team for the qualifying rounds and we strongly believe that training at NCA will add to our experience and confidence to perform upto a higher level in the event (qualifying rounds)”.
To a question, he said , will pay for their training at NCA .” Before we were attending such programmes at Sharjah but NCA is the most suitable place where all most modern cricket facilities are available under one roof for training for any international vent “.
He said Pakistan always supported the cause of cricket in Afghanistan even in difficult situation in their country and they are thankful to PCB for its support in organizing cricket in their war-torn country.
“We strongly believe that the visit of our team will help in dispelling the impression that Pakistan is not a safe country for staging international cricket and our presence will motivate the other foreign teams to visit Pakistan in due course of time “,he asserted.
Afghan team manager Nouraiz said it is the not the first visit of Afghan team to Pakistan and they are delighted to be here again to get support from PCB and NCA to groom their team for a tough challenge. “PCB regime led by its Chairman, Mohammad Zaka Asrhaf is extending full support to Afghan cricket”, he added.
He praised the initiation of the Pakistan Super League and vowed to be part of the activity. He further said that his board is going to sign a five years contract with the PCB for exchange of tours and permission to be part of cricket in Pakistan.
Speaking on the occasion, Intikhab said that he will try to induct Afghanistan cricket team in domestic cricket so that they can play in the ODI tournament.
