Majority of the foreign players in the Shpageeza Cricket League decide to stay

Afghanistan has vastly developed in the recent years in terms of cricket. They recently were honoured with the full membership by the International Cricket Council (ICC). That meant they were now able to play Test cricket which was a fantastic news. However, Afghanistan Cricket Board has been taking steps towards being better in all the formats of the game.

Thus they recently started the Shpageeza Cricket League their domestic T20 league. The tournament has seen many foreign players fly in to be a part with South Africans and Zimbabweans being the major contributors. The league was smoothly contested until the shocking terrorist attack shook the foreign players more than the country.

A detonation near the stadium

A suicide bomber detonated explosives near the Alokozay Kabul International Cricket Ground. This blast killed three personnel including the bomber. This rocked the entire crowd in the stadium and also the players along with the commentators sitting inside the com box. The match was briefly halted but resumed after the security was tightened and everything was under control.

This incident saw many foreign players leave the tournament. Eight of them left from Afghanistan to be precise. The South African board and the Zimbabwe board have revoked their No Objection Certificate. Four South Africans, Cameron Delport, Morne van Wyk, Glenton Stuurman and Abdul Razak, two Zimbabweans, Hamilton Masakazda and Solomon Mire, and West Indian Rayad Emrit were the players who left the tournament.

Some left but majority stayed

As some of the players left because of the detonation, there were many who stayed back. Zimbabwe’s Elton Chigumbura, Sikandar Raza, Johnathan Campbell, Ryan Burl, Vusi Sibanda, former Pakistan all-rounder Abdul Razzaq, Sri Lanka’s Ashan Priyanjan, Oman cricketers Bilal Khan, Zeeshan Maqsood and Richard Ngarava, Tendai Chisoro, Luke Jongwe, Richmond Mutumbami were the players who stayed back.

The Chief of ACB Ghani talked to the players and promised them presidential security. This has calmed the nerves of the players and many decided to stay back and play the tournament further. The T20 league is a hit amongst the Afghan fans. Every match is a sellout and the quality of the tournament is also very good.

Raza explains the incident

Zimbabwe’s Raza talked to ESPNcricinfo, he said that “After the incident, there are two ways to look at it. One way is that the incident happened close to the ground. The other way to look at it is that the security forces managed to stop that guy from getting in. So, security did work.”

Though he admitted that there was fear among the players but everything calmed down once security took over. He said, “There was a moment of fear, but once we realized that everyone was safe and nobody was hurt or dead, I think it brought us to our feet again.” He also said that the sound was extremely loud and this sent fear all around the crowd.

“The game stopped and we tried to find out what exactly had happened. We managed to find out that the security forces had done their job and the man was stopped. The sound itself was pretty loud and there was a moment of fear. But we got out of it pretty quickly and that’s why we went out and played the game,” Raza concluded.