Dubai: Afghanistan cricket team which has been utilising the Sharjah Cricket Stadium for the last one year as their home ground will soon have an international stadium.
"Work on an international stadium in the Ghazi Amanullah Khan Township in Nangarhar Province has already commenced. It will be a stadium with top class facilities and is expected to be ready in five months" remarked Dr Hamid Shinwari, the Chief Executive of the Afghanistan Cricket Board, to Gulf News from Kabul.
"Our aim is to gain Test status in three year's time and host international matches in this stadium. We are also in the process of building two more stadiums in Jalalabad and Kandahar. This is in addition to the six cricket grounds and 16 cricket academies we hope to create soon," said Shinwari.
"The Sharjah Stadium will continue to be used for the staging of our international matches as security in Afghanistan is yet to be stable and international teams are not ready to play here," he said.
The work on the stadium is expected to be completed in five months. The stadium is expected to be a picturesque one near a mountain and greenery all around.
"We are confident that this stadium will be better than any stadium that has been created by any affiliate member nation and considering the tremendous following for the game everyone can expected a packed stadium for all matches here," said Shinwari.
"Our Cricket Board president Omar Zakhilwal, who is also Afghanistan's finance minister, has announced that he has plans to build cricket grounds in all the 34 provinces in the next two years. This new stadium will be one of the centrepieces in the cricket surge that is currently sweeping across Afghanistan," he said.
