Afghanistan appoint Gulbadin Naib as captain for Cricket World Cup

Afghanistan have appointed a new captain, Gulbardin Naib, for their World Cup squad, with their chairman of selectors promising to play “inspirational cricket in the tournament” which starts in England at the end of May.

Naib’s appointment, however, has been criticised by the two best-known Afghan cricketers, Mohammad Nabi and Rashid Khan, who have tweeted that the previous captain Afghan Asghar should not have been removed on the eve of this 50-over World Cup, Afghanistan’s second.

“The mission is to play inspirational cricket in the tournament,” said Afghanistan’s chairman of selectors Dawlat Khan Ahmadzai. “I know there are strong teams but we will do our level best to achieve our goals."

Afghanistan undoubtedly played some inspirational cricket to win the qualifying tournament for this World Cup, qualifying alongside West Indies then beating them in the final.

Naib, 28, has not always been a regular member of the Afghan side, but he is widely known for his role in the best of all cricket films, Out of the Ashes, a documentary about the rise of cricket in Afghanistan, where cricket was unknown 20 years ago. Afghan refugees in Pakistan however were picking up the game in camps around Peshawar.

When Afghanistan were promoted to division five of the ICC World Championship, they were pitted in 2007 against the likes of Japan, Jersey and Singapore in a tournament in Jersey. This was the first visit to the west for most of Afghanistan’s players and in the film Naib, as the youngest, is captured in open-mouthed amazement in a street watching young women walk past with bare midriffs instead of burkas.

Helping to fuel Afghan cricket’s rise from nowhere to the world’s top ten has been the financial incentive: few other ways to earn a decent legal living at home. In any other country Naib might have drifted out of the sport after being dropped from the national side, as an allrounder who was useful but not quite a matchwinner as either batsman or seamer; but he was the breadwinner for his family, as he said in the film, because his father was unemployed, his mother had hepatitis and his sister disabilities.

Another character in their squad is Hamid Hasan, now 31, and one of the fastest bowlers in world cricket, clocking over 140 kph, until he damaged his knee diving into a boundary fence playing against England in Dubai in 2012.