Former Zimbabwe captain Andy Flower has been appointed as Afghanistan’s national team consultant for the upcoming ICC T20 World Cup, scheduled to be held in the UAE and Oman from October 17, the Afghanistan Cricket Board (ACB) has announced.
Flower had earlier coached the England team between 2009 and 2014. It was under his tenure when England had won the ICC T20 World Cup in 2010 in the West Indies.
As per reports, the Zimbabwe great has already joined the Afghanistan cricket bubble.
“We are delighted that Andy has joined ACB. Andy has worked with a number of our players in various franchise completions and his vast experience will be very beneficial and useful to help the team in the World Cup,” ACB chairman Azizullah Fazli said in a statement.
Flower, considered as one of the best cricketer of Zimbabwe, featured in 63 Tests and 213 One-Day Internationals (ODIs) for his national side.
After retiring from the game, he began his coaching career and has had multiple coaching stints in various franchises and T20 leagues around the world, including Caribbean Premier League (CPL), Pakistan Super League (PSL) and The Hundred.
Currently, Flower also serves as the head coach of the PSL franchise Multan Sultans and St Lucia Zouks in CPL.
Under his tenure, Multan Sultans made to their first-ever playoffs in the 2020 season of the PSL. The Multan Sultans finished first in the league stage but later lost in the preliminaries.
Similarly, he led the Zouks to their first-ever finals appearance in the CPL.
Flower also serve as assistant coach to IPL franchise Punjab Kings.
In June 2021, he was inducted to the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame and became the first ever Zimbabwean to be inducted into ICC Hall of Fame.
The Afghanistan’s team had left for Qatar from Kabul on October 6 to participate in the World Cup.
Led by Mohammad Nabi, Afghanistan is placed in Group 2 of T20 World Cup 2021, alongside India, New Zealand, and Pakistan. They will be joined by two other teams from the qualifier stage.
Afghanistan will begin their campaign in the showpiece event with the winner of Group B in Round 1 on October 25 at the Sharjah Cricket Stadium.
They will later face Pakistan in Dubai on October 29 before taking on qualifier from the Round 2 on October 31 in Abu Dhabi.
They will lock horns against tournament favourites India on November 3 in Abu Dhabi before facing New Zealand in their last league game at the same venue on November 7.
At present, Afghanistan is placed at the seventh place in the ICC T20 international rankings.
Afghanistan Squad for T20 World Cup:
Mohammad Nabi (Captain), Rashid Khan, Mujeeb Ur Rahman, Rahmanullah Gurbaz (wk), Karim Janat, Hazratullah Zazai, Gulbadin Naib, Usman Ghani, Naveen ul Haq, Asghar Afghan, Hamid Hassan, Sharafuddin Ashraf, Najibullah Zadran, Dawlat Zadran, Hashmatullah Shahidi, Shapoor Zadran, Mohammad Shahzad (wk), Qais Ahmad. Reserves: Afsar Zazai, Fareed Ahmad