Afghanistan Cricket Board (ACB) announced a 17-man squad for the upcoming Asia Cup which is set to take place in Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
The squad was announced after much consideration as some of the players, who were part of the squad that recently faced Pakistan in a three-match ODI series, were not included.
Fareed Ahmad, Azmatullah Omarzai, Shahidullah Kamal and Wafadar Momand will not participate in the Asian event.
On the other hand, players like Karim Janat, Najibullah Zadran and Sharafuddin Ashraf are making their comebacks.
Janat has only played one ODI in his seven-year-long international career, which was against Zimbabwe in 2016 at Harare. He has spent a better part of his career playing the shorter format with 49 T20Is.
While Najibullah was kept out of the squad facing Pakistan because of an injury but with his return, the Afghans will get a much-needed confidence booster in their batting lineup after having a disappointing performance with the bat in the first and third ODI against the Green Shirts.
Rahmanullah Gurbaz and Ibrahim Zadran will open the innings while Mohammad Nabi and Riaz Hassan will be doing the job in the middle overs.
Afghanistan, as always, will have a great spin combination. Rashid Khan, Mujeeb Ur Rehman, Mohammad Nabi and Noor Ahmad will work their magic with the ball.
While Fazalhaq Farooqi will lead the pace attack with the help of Janat, Abdul Rehman and Mohammad Saleem.
Squad
Hashmatullah Shahidi (c), Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Ibrahim Zadran, Riaz Hassan, Rahmat Shah, Najibullah Zadran, Mohammad Nabi, Ikram Alikhil, Rashid Khan, Gulbadin Naib, Karim Janat, Abdul Rahman, Sharafuddin Ashraf, Mujeeb ur Rahman, Noor Ahmad, Suliman Safi, Fazalhaq Farooqi
It must be noted that Afghanistan have had a disappointing performance against Pakistan as they lost all three ODIs of the series.
In the first ODI, they were handed a 142-run defeat as their batting lineup collapsed and could only score 59 runs in reply to Pakistan's 201 runs.
The second ODI was a close one as they lost by one wicket after putting 301 runs on the scoreboard.
Meanwhile, the third ODI was one-sided as well as they lost by 59 runs.