Picture Credit: AP
With all the teams given a deadline of September 10 to submit their provisional squads for 2021 T20 World Cup, all the national sides have been announcing their squads for the mega event. There have been few big surprises with the likes of Ben Stokes, Yuzvendra Chahal, Janneman Malan missing out from the respective squads. However, a very controversial sequence of events has taken place since the announcement of Afghanistan's squad.
Afghanistan announce squad with Rashid Khan as captain
Afghanistan Cricket Board announced a strong-looking squad for the upcoming T20 World Cup set to take place in UAE. With Rashid Khan as the captain, the squad featured Rahmanullah Gurbaz as his deputy and many other senior members in form of Hazratullah Zazai, Asghar Afghan and Mohammad Nabi.
Rashid steps down as captain moments after announcement of squad
But, it looks like that there was some communication gap between the board and the captain of the side which led to unfolding of the whole drama. Afghanistan's squad was announced on Twitter at 10:19 PM IST. Exactly 22 minutes later at 10:41 PM IST, Rashid Khan put out a post on his Twitter handle claiming that the selection committee announced the squad without obtaining his consent. The leg-spinner also revealed that he is stepping down as captain of the national side with immediate effect.
"As the captain and responsible person for the nation, I reserve the right to be part of the selection of the team. The selection committee and ACB has not obtained my consent for the team which has been announced by ACB media. I am taking the decision of stepping down from the role as captain of Afghanistan T20 side effective immediately. It's always my proud playing for Afghanistan," Rashid stated in his post.
Check out Rashid's post:
It will be extremely interesting to see how things unfold from here on in this whole saga. While there is a possibility of Afghanistan Cricket Board holding talks with Rashid Khan to sort out the matter, things can also go downhill with the 22-year-old facing a risk of punishment from the governing body for his actions.