ACB looking to relaunch Afghanistan Premier League in 2025

The Afghanistan Cricket Board (ACB) have stated that they are planning to relaunch the Afghanistan Premier League (APL), country's franchise-based T20 tournament that was postponed after the first edition, in 2025.

The development of Afghanistan cricket in a relatively short time has received a lot of love from the cricket fraternity. Relaunching the Afghanistan Premier League is undoubtedly going to bolster the country's cricketing resources.

Also Read: T20 World Cup 2024: Semi-final 1, Afghanistan vs South Africa Match Preview: Head to Head, Where to Watch on TV & Live Streaming Details

The first edition of the APL took place in the UAE in 2018. Five teams competed in the inaugural edition, and Balkh Legends became the inaugural champions by beating Kabul Zwanan in the finals by four wickets in Sharjah. After the inaugural edition, multiple attempts have been made to relaunch the league but nothing came to fruition.

However, ACB chief executive Naseeb Khan is confident of hosting the competition at some time after the next edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) considering they could not relaunch it this season due to their busy domestic and international schedule.

"We are determined to re-launch the APL and working on it to make that happen. We are hoping to start the tournament from next year as this year we don't have much time because of our international commitments and domestic schedule and so we are hoping to relaunch the APL at some time after the next IPL," Naseeb told Cricbuzz recently.

"We had a bidding process and lot of companies showed interest and now we had shortlisted some companies from the long list and now we will put it in the board and after getting approval we will start our next course of action. This year we have series against Zimbabwe, New Zealand and we have Emerging Asia Cup and tri-series of Under-19 and Under-19 Asia Cup so the schedule is very busy so it (APL season 2) cannot be hosted this year but next year we are eyeing to relaunch it," he added.

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Meanwhile, Afghanistan are having an excellent T20 World Cup 2024 campaign, as they reached the semifinals after beating Australia and Bangladesh in the Super Eight stage. Rashid Khan's men will lock horns with unbeaten South Africa in the first semifinal on Thursday, June 27, at the Brian Lara Stadium in Tarouba, Trinidad.