T20 World Cup: Afghanistan’s Asghar to retire from all formats after Namibia match

The Afghanistan Cricket Board on Saturday (October 30) informed that former captain Asghar Afghan has announced his retirement from international cricket. He will play his last match for Afghanistan against Namibia at the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup, which is underway in UAE and Oman. 

The 33-year-old said in Pashto in a video message on Facebook: “I will retire from all international cricket after the game against Namibia. I want more and more youngsters to get the opportunity to play for Afghanistan. Therefore, it’s expected that tomorrow will be my last international match and afterwards I will resign.”

“@ACBofficials welcomes and respects his decision, expresses gratitude for his services to the country. It will take a lot of hard work for young Afghan cricketers to fill his shoes,” tweeted the Afghanistan Cricket Board. 

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Overall, Asghar played six Tests, 114 one-day internationals and 74 Twenty20 internationals in a career spread over 12 years. He scored 440 runs in Tests with one hundred while his tally in ODIs was 2,424 with a century and 12 half-centuries. 

Asghar led his side in all three formats of cricket for six years but he was sacked two weeks before the start of the 2019 World Cup in England. He eventually won back the captaincy but was axed again in June this year after being blamed for the team’s poor form in a Test series in Zimbabwe.