Qais Ahmad, Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Noor Ahmad set to miss CPL 2020

Afghanistan cricketers Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Qais Ahmad and Noor Ahmad are set to miss out from the 2020 edition of the Caribbean Premier League (CPL). The tournament is scheduled to get underway on Tuesday, August 18 with the match between 2017 and 2018 champions Trinbago Knight Riders and last year’s runners-up Guyana Amazon Warriors.

As far as the young Afghan trio is concerned, they wouldn’t be able to take part in the T20 event since they don’t possess a United Kingdom (UK) transit visa, required to board the special chartered planes run by the CPL from London to the West Indies.

“It is a real shame that these players couldn’t make it to the tournament, but this year more than ever it has been very difficult to secure travel. The borders into Trinidad & Tobago are closed and CPL was given special permission to fly in charter planes. The dates for these were fixed and it just wasn’t possible to get them here on time,” a CPL spokesperson told Cricbuzz.

Missed chance for the Afghanistan youngsters

Qais was set to play alongside Imran Tahir for the Warriors, who finished second in 2019 under Shoaib Malik’s leadership. The tweaker was a part of the St Lucia franchise in 2018 and then in 2019, he was picked by the Warriors itself. On the other hand, Ahmad and Gurbaz were about to make their debut in the CPL, but they will have to wait for the time being.

Even as Gurbaz was picked by last year’s champions Barbados Tridents, Ahmad was about to play for the St Lucia Zouks. The 18-year-old Gurbaz already has played 10 T20Is for his country, scoring 332 runs at a strike-rate of 140.67 with a couple of fifties to show for his efforts. Gurbaz also scored a 19-ball 50 for the Khulna Tigers in the 2019-20 edition of the Bangabandhu BPL.

Ahmad was a part of the Afghan U19 squad for the World Cup earlier this year in South Africa. There he picked up seven wickets from five matches at an economy rate of 3.93. He was also there in the 2020 Indian Premier League auction, though he didn’t find a buyer at a base price of INR 30 lakhs.