The Afghanistan Cricket Board (ACB) has named the captains, head coaches and mentors for the five teams of the revamped Afghanistan Premier League. Afghanistan's leading players Rashid Khan, Azmatullah Omarzai, Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Rahmat Shah and Ibrahim Zadran will lead the sides in the league, which is due to start on December 27.
Rashid will captain Kandahar Warriors, with Ravi Bopara as head coach and Irfan Pathan as mentor. The Paktia team will be led by Rahmat Shah, with former Pakistan all-rounder Azhar Mahmood as head coach and former Pakistan fast bowler Waqar Younis as mentor. Omarzai leads Akcel United Kabul, Gurbaz leads the Nangarhar side with Mark Boucher as mentor, and Ibrahim Zadran leads Balkh, coached by Mickey Arthur with Tillakaratne Dilshan as mentor.
The players' draft takes place in Dubai on November 3. The ACB said close to 1,500 Afghan and overseas players registered, trimmed to a pool of 462. Overseas names in the pool include Pakistan's Imam-ul-Haq, Saim Ayub, Fakhar Zaman and Sahibzada Farhan, along with Wanindu Hasaranga, Shakib Al Hasan, Rovman Powell and Imran Tahir.
Each squad will have 19 players, with at least 12 Afghans, and the player salary cap is $725,000 per franchise. The ACB first launched the league in 2018, but only one season was played before it was dropped amid payment problems. Venues have not been officially confirmed, but the first season of the revamped league is expected to be played in the UAE.