Azizullah Fazli appointed Afghanistan Cricket Board acting chairman

Azizullah Fazli has been appointed as the acting chairman of the Afghanistan Cricket Board (ACB), according to a post on the official Twitter account on Sunday.

Fazli, who has previously served as the chairman of the cricket board between September 2018 and July 2019 following Atif Mashal’s resignation, will oversee the course of action for the forthcoming series.

“Former ACB Chairman Azizullah Fazli has been re-appointed ACB’s acting Chairman. He will oversee ACB’s leadership and course of action for the upcoming competitions,” the tweet read.

His appointment is the first big cricket-related development in the country since the Taliban took over on August 15.

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Fazli has been working for the development of cricket in Afghanistan for almost twenty years. He was among the early group of players who established the game in the country, and after retirement, worked as ACB’s vice-chairman and adviser before being appointed as the chairman in September 2018. He relinquished the post in July next year after the Afghanistan cricket team’s dismal performance in the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup 2019.

His first task as the chairman will be to smoothly organise the One-Day International (ODI) series against Pakistan in Sri Lanka.

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The Afghanistan cricket team is scheduled to play three ODIs against Pakistan, but the series has been marred with controversies since its announcement. The ACB had to first move the series from the United Arab Emirates (UAE), where it was initially planned, to Sri Lanka as venues there were unavailable due to the second leg of Indian Premier League (IPL) 2021.

With commercial flights from the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul yet to resume after political upheaval in the country, it is understood that the Afghan players will travel Pakistan by road before flying out for Sri Lanka via Dubai.

However, the future of the series remains uncertain as Sri Lanka has gone into a ten-day lockdown on Friday night due to rising COVID-19 cases. For the ODI series to go on, the Afghan cricket board will require special permission from the Sri Lankan government. However, there has been no official word from either side in this regard.