LAHORE, Jan 21: The Afghanistan team arrived here for a month-long preparatory tour wherein they will be attending National Cricket Academy (NCA) coaching programmes besides playing one-day and T20 matches.

In a press briefing arranged for the team on Monday at Gaddafi Stadium, Director Games development, NCA, Intikhab Alam said the Afghanistan players will greatly benefit from its training tour of Pakistan.

Flanked by captain of Afghanistan team Kabir Khan and manager Nawroz Mangal, Intikhab said the prime aim of Afghan team’s tour is to build their team for the World Cup qualifying round to be held in March.

“Our experienced coaches will be imparting finer points of the game to bring improvement in the batting, fielding and bowling of the players to prepare them for the qualifying rounds to get productive results,” said Intikhab.

He said the Afghanistan team will also be playing eight one-day games and four Twenty20 matches against Pakistan ‘A’ team to get useful competitive practice ahead of their participation in the qualifying rounds.

Senior General Manager NCA Ali Zia was also present on the occasion.

Afghan team captain Kabir described the training programme at NCA as “very important” in order to lift the fortunes of their team by overcoming flaws in different departments of the game.

“It is a very good opportunity for our players to learn from coaches at the NCA,” he said.

“We are focusing on preparation of the team for the qualifying rounds and we strongly believe that training at the NCA will add to our experience and confidence to perform upto a higher level in the event.”

To a question, Kabir said they will pay for their training at the NCA.

“Before this, we were attending such programmes at Sharjah but NCA is the most suitable place where all most modern cricket facilities are available under one roof for training for any international event.”

He said Pakistan always supported the cause of cricket in Afghanistan, even in difficult situations in their country and they are thankful to the PCB for its support in organising cricket in their war-torn country.

Afghan team manager Nawroz said it is not the first visit of their team to Pakistan and they are delighted to be here again to get support from PCB to groom their team for a tough challenge.

“This PCB regime led by its chairman Zaka Asrhaf is extending full support to Afghanistan cricket,” he added.—Agencies