Does giving chance to Afghanistan to play in the Asia Cup make any sense?

With the inclusion of the Afghanistan Cricket Team for the Asia Cup 2014, the competition is sure to get intense. Afghanistan captain Mohammad Nabi stood alongside Virat Kohli, Misbah-ul-Haq, Angelo Mathews, and Mushfiqur Rahim to pose with the Asia Cup Trophy at the trophy unveiling ceremony. Asia Cup 2014 has started with the inaugural match being played between Sri Lanka and Pakistan on 25th February 2014, at Fatullah. A competition which consists of 3 former world champions, gives an opportunity to the Afghanistan players to prove themselves on the big stage.

The Afghanistan Cricket Team has been given opportunities in ICC tournaments before, and they didn’t disappoint the spectators. After qualifying for the ICC World T20 tournament in 2010 and 2012, Afghanistan showed glimpses of some good performances in the main events. Though they couldn’t win any game in their previous two T20 world tournament outings, Afghanistan did manage to give some headache to the Indian Cricket Team, when they threatened to take the match away from the Indians, while chasing a total of 160 runs in 20 overs during the ICC world T20 2013.

Their impressive strike bowlers- Shapoor Zadran and Dawlat Zadran, and batsmen like Mohammad Nabi, Mohammad Shahzad and Nawroz Mangal will ensure that Afghanistan succeeds in making an impact on the cricketing world through this tournament.

After having a 80% win record against Canada(winning 4 out of 5 games), a 66% win record against Kenya(winning 4 out of 6 games) and a 66% record against Scotland(winning 4 out of 6 games) in ODIs, Afghanistan definitely deserves a chance to improve their records against big boys like India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.