Afghanistan fans trend #NoCricketwithPakistan on Twitter

A few days ago, Afghanistan Cricket Board’s (ACB) chairman Atif Mashal met with the chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) Shaharyar Khan. The positive aspect of the meeting was that the two boards agreed upon a T20 friendly series to be played between the two teams in Kabul and Lahore. The exact dates for the series is not yet decided. But the two boards expect it to be played July or August.

But the ACB chairman has clearly rejected Khan’s offer to have Pakistan as their home venue. The Afghanistan supporters are furious at the decision made by their cricket board to play a T20I series with Pakistan. To express their anger, they took to Twitter and used #NoCricketwithPakistan as the protest slogan. They have bashed Atif Mashal for agreeing with his PCB counterpart for the series.

Mashal, however, rejected PCB chairman’s offer to use Pakistan’s venues as conditioning and training camps. “We told them [PCB] that we can’t agree on this plan, and we have home grounds in India and Sharjah as well as grounds for domestic cricket in Afghanistan. Their offer is not for international cricket but for Afghan domestic cricket and we are thankful of their offer,” said Mashal.

But unlike the Afghan supporters, he is excited to host the Pakistan cricket team in Afghanistan. “Touring Pakistan is not for the first time, we have played lot of matches in the past. But it will be for the first time that Pakistan’s national side will come to Afghanistan and play a match,” said the ACB chairman.

He has also revealed that the ACB is keen to tour Bangladesh. They are also trying to arrange a bilateral series with Sri Lanka and India.

Here are some of the tweets from Afghan fans