Former Afghanistan captain Asghar Afghan is their most successful captain ever and knows a thing or two about cricket in their country. It was under his leadership that the team witnessed a meteoric rise from 2015 and 2021, and whose results the current team is also reaping. In the recently concluded ICC World Cup 2023, Afghanistan came tantalisingly close to booking a semis berth, but eventually finished a creditable sixth, after failing to win a match in the 2019 World Cup.
While things only look bright for Afghanistan cricket at the moment, it wasn’t so until a few years ago. In an interview with the Times of India, Asghar revealed, that initially there wasn’t a lot of money involved for them in cricket. It was slowly after they started getting results, that the money also started coming in.
He narrated a funny tale, where as the skipper, Asghar demanded an increment in the match fees and was in turn asked by the board, to win a match against Zimbabwe. “In 2015, when I became the captain, the team was in the rebuilding phase. We weren’t performing the way we are today. We were under so much pressure. We just wanted to make our presence felt in front of the world. We are not financially strong. Initially, I didn’t want to be the captain of the team but the former coaches like Kabir Khan and Rashid Latif convinced me to take up the captaincy role. It was a huge challenge as it was a new team and needed a lot of restructuring,” Asghar stated.
“In T20Is, we used to get match fees of 50 dollars and in ODIs, it was 75 dollars. We didn’t have money. I spoke to the cricket board and made a condition. We had to play five ODIs and three T20Is against Zimbabwe. The qualification for the ICC World Cup 2015 was also there. They said at least win an ODI and a T20I match vs Zimbabwe. I replied to them that we would not win the matches, we would win both the series (T20I and ODIs) vs Zimbabwe and we would qualify for the World Cup as well. They laughed at me.
“They said a team that didn’t win against the UAE or Hong Kong, how can it win a series against a team like Zimbabwe and qualify for the World Cup. I accepted that challenge. I said I will resign if I cannot do this. But I also put a condition. I said if I manage to do this, the board must increase the T20I match fee from 50 dollars to 1000 dollars and the ODI match fee from 75 dollars to 2000 dollars. The board agreed and we qualified for the World Cup too. Since then, there is no looking back for Afghanistan,” Asghar concluded.
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