The Afghanistan Cricket Board has reshuffled its senior selection committee in the middle of a World Cup, inducting former head coach Andy Moles and Mujahid Zadran into the panel. The current chief selector, Dawlat Ahmadzai, will lead the junior selection committee. The ACB shared the news through a tweet on Tuesday.
Moles has served as coach of the Afghanistan senior team as well as the country’s Under-19 team. His stint with the senior team ran from 2014 to 2015, during which the side played their maiden World Cup, in Australia in 2015. More recently, Moles has been involved with Afghanistan’s junior teams, coaching the Under-19 and Under-23 sides.
The changes to the selection panel came a couple of months after its decision to remove Asghar Afghan as captain from all three formats. Gulbadin Naib was appointed captain of the ODI team and is leading the side in the ongoing World Cup, whereas Rahmat Shah and Rashid Khan were named captains of the Test and T20I teams respectively. Two of the most prominent Afghanistan players, Mohammad Nabi and Rashid Khan were vocal about their opposition to the move, criticizing the timing of the change, just weeks before the World Cup. Where Nabi tweeted in support of Afghan, saying the team had “gelled really well” under the veteran, Rashid called the decision was “irresponsible and biased”.
Mohammad Shahzad, whose World Cup was cut short due to an injury, also claimed that he was incorrectly declared unfit and omitted from the squad, although ACB insisted that Shahzad was indeed unfit.
Apart from their decision on the selection committee, ACB have bought in four new governing board members replacing Hikmat Khalil Karzai (deputy minister of foreign affairs), Aklil Hakimi (minister of finance), Sayed Mansoor Saadat Naderi (minister of urban development and housing) and Ahmad Shah Sangdil (university chancellor), since they no longer hold public offices.
As per the presidential decree, they were replaced by Zia ul Haq Amarkhi (senior advisor to the country’s President), Gulalai Noor (senator), Jawad Paikar (minister of urban development and housing) while Atif Mashel – ACB’s former president, now ambassador to Pakistan – also joins the group.
Source: ESPN Crickinfo