ICC approves Sayed Ahmad Shirzad as a replacement for Aftab Alam in Afghanistan squad

The Afghanistan team has been in all sorts of troubles. While things haven’t panned out their way on the field in terms of results, they’ve also had troubles with the squad. A couple of weeks ago wicketkeeper-batsman Mohammad Shahzad was ruled out due to an injury which he denied and now seamer Aftab Alam has also been replaced in the squad.

The International Cricket Council (ICC) has confirmed that the Event Technical Committee of the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup 2019 has approved Sayed Ahmad Shirzad as a replacement player for Aftab Alam in Afghanistan’s squad for the remainder of the tournament. Aftab played three matches in the tournament for Afghanistan out of their seven.

He had the best game against the mighty New Zealand returning with figures of 3/45. Aftab in his career has played 27 ODIs and picked 41 wickets. The righ-arm pacer was expected to play a crucial part in the Afghanistan team that doesn’t boast of a pretty thick pace attack.

The International Cricket Council has confirmed that the Event Technical Committee of the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup 2019 has approved Sayed Ahmad Shirzad as a replacement player for Aftab Alam in Afghanistan’s squad for the remainder of the tournament.

Replacement under exceptional circumstances

Bowler Alam has been replaced under exceptional circumstances. The replacement of a player requires the approval of the Event Technical Committee before the replacement player can be officially added to the squad.

The Event Technical Committee of the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup 2019 consists of Geoff Allardice (ICC, ETC chairman), Campbell Jamieson (ICC representative), Steve Elworthy (CWC representative), Alan Fordham (host representative), Harsha Bhogle and Kumar Sangakkara (both independent representatives).

Shirzad, is a left-arm fast bowler and to date has played just one ODI in the Afghanistan colours. He didn’t have a show to put there either as the match against Ireland was washed out. In his List A career, the 24-year-old picked 12 wickets, in first-class cricket he has 49 wickets from 15 matches.

The pacer has featured in Afghanistan Premier League, their domestic T20 tournament and in 13 T20s has scalped 23 wickets at an average of 16.78.