Time is right for Afghanistan's long walk from promise to silverware

Afghanistan's spin attack will continue to be the threat for oppositions in Asia Cup 2025 ©Getty

It's been ten and a half years since Shapoor Zadran ran across the ground in Dunedin, hands and bat aloft in pure delirium. Afghanistan had just beaten Scotland for their first win on the grandest stage - an ODI World Cup, a surreal moment for a nation that had made its way to the showpiece event against gargantuan odds. But a decade is a long time. Even Afghanistan will attest to it, having travelled far from being the poster boys of a feel-good story.

They have grown with time, shedding their tag of perennial heart-winners and putting themselves in serious conversations in the format. Rashid Khan's IPL arrival in 2017 barely caused a ripple in the league's landscape. Seven years on, no bowler has more T20 wickets and he sits in the leadership group of every team he represents. And it's not just Rashid anymore. A lot of others have become bonafide stars, their demand sky-high before every auction and draft.

But the highs of franchise cricket have brought with them harsher spotlight and sterner questions: why can't a collection of such performers translate success together in multi-team events at the international level? Afghanistan have had their moments, but they've all been frustratingly fleeting. They soared to new heights at the 2023 ODI World Cup and the 2024 T20 World Cup, only to deflate when the pressure meter soured.

They now enter Asia Cup 2025 on the back of another bruising defeat in a final. Yet, the time feels right for them to complete the long walk from promise to silverware.

Afghanistan squad: Rashid Khan (c), Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Ibrahim Zadran, Darwish Rasooli, Sediqullah Atal, Azmatullah Omarzai, Karim Janat, Mohammad Nabi, Gulbadin Naib, Sharafuddin Ashraf, Mohammad Ishaq, Noor Ahmad, Mujeeb ur Rahman, AM Ghazanfar, Farid Ahmad Malik, Fazalhaq Farooqi, Naveen ul Haq

Probable XI: Rahmanullah Gurbaz (wk), Ibrahim Zadran, Sediqullah Atal, Darwish Rasooli, Karim Janat, Azmatullah Omarzai, Mohammad Nabi, Rashid Khan (c), AM Ghazanfar, Noor Ahmad, Fazalhaq Farooqi

Afghanistan head to the Asia Cup with their bowling arsenal at full tilt. Rashid, Noor Ahmad and Fazalhaq Farooqi are three of only seven bowlers with 100-plus T20 wickets since January 2024. After a middling IPL, Rashid rediscovered his zing in The Hundred and the recent tri-series in Sharjah. Add 18-year-old mystery spinner AM Ghazanfar, already the toast of leagues worldwide. And the spin catalogue doesn't end there - Mujeeb Ur Rahman's offbreaks and Sharafuddin Ashraf's left-arm orthodox add further variety.

Lopsided batting, however, remains Afghanistan's blind spot. Openers Rahmanullah Gurbaz and Ibrahim Zadran have done most of the heavy lifting in white-ball formats, but a soft middle-order has long been a pain point. After last year's humbling at the hands of South Africa in the T20 World Cup semifinal, head coach Jonathan Trott identified the problem and offered a solution.

"We've perhaps been a bit too reliant on Gurbaz and Ibrahim to get runs. Nobody else has got runs. And we need to find a reason for that. We need to get more batters in who are going to score runs and be more consistent like the openers have been and give us a chance in games. So that's the project for going forward. We've got to find batters who can bat in the middle order in T20 cricket," Trott had said.

Azmatullah Omarzai has added some heft outside the top two, but a year since Trott laid out those expectations, the spotlight shines squarely on all of their middle-order batters heading into the first of the two major multi-team tournaments in the next six months.

Keep an eye on:Sediqullah Atal. As the only left-hander in the top-five, Atal brings with him the promise of change. His 154 runs in four innings in the tri-series added weight to the growing belief that the 24-year-old could be the future of Afghanistan's batting, and perhaps the one to spark the revolution that Trott so dearly craves.

Marquee Match: Bangladesh and Afghanistan have often felt like two peas in the same pod. Bangladesh first carried the underdog tag, punching above their weight against bigger sides, until Afghanistan picked it up and did it better. Bangladesh went deep in the 2016 Asia Cup - the first in the T20 format, but by 2022, Afghanistan had eclipsed them in this tournament too. Both sides are still chasing a first major multi-nation trophy, but Afghanistan appear further along that path. On September 16, Bangladesh might look to push them off course.

Banana peel fixture: Sri Lanka are Asia Cup royalty with six titles. Their most recent triumph came in the 2022 edition (T20 format). Their current form, though, supersedes their glowing reputation. They crashed out of the group stage in the 2024 T20 World Cup and have lost three out of their six bilateral series since. What should have been a giant-killing opportunity for Afghanistan now carries the feel of a banana peel, given the contrasting trajectories of the two sides in this format.

Group stage schedule

September 9: vs Hong Kong, Abu Dhabi

September 16: vs Bangladesh, Abu Dhabi

September 19: vs Sri Lanka, Abu Dhabi

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