Mohammad Shahzad replacement: Afghanistan Cricket Board announce Shahzad’s replacement for 2019 Cricket World Cup

Mohammad Shahzad replacement: Afghanistan Cricket Board have announced their wicket-keeper batsman’s replacement for World Cup.

Afghanistan wicket-keeper batsman Mohammad Shahzad has been ruled out of the ongoing ICC Cricket World Cup 2019. Succumbing to a knee injury, Shahzad’s absence is highly likely to come as a massive blow for the Afghans in the ongoing showpiece event.

Other than Shahzad being an attacking opening batsman and a wicket-keeper, he is also a senior figure in their team. In the two matches which Shahzad has played in the tournament, he had scored 0 and 7.

Mohammad Shahzad replacement

Afghanistan Cricket Board have announced Ikram Ali Khil as Shahzad’s replacement. Much like Shahzad, Ali Khil is also a wicket-keeper batsman. Having said that, he mostly bats in the middle-order. It would be interesting to see if Ali Khil will be promoted to open the batting or Afghanistan will change their batting order to accommodate him.

Having made his ODI debut in March this year, the 18-year old cricketer has played a couple of ODIs and one Test match. In the two ODIs against Ireland at Dehradun, Ali Khil scored 5* and 1. Representing his nation at this age in the World Cup, it is an opportunity which Ali Khil would be looking to bank upon.

Ali Khil was part of the Afghani team during both the ICC U-19 Cricket World Cup in 2016 and 2018.

Talking about Afghanistan, they have lost both their matches (against Australia and Sri Lanka) so far in the tournament and would be looking to stage a comeback now.

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