Afghanistan will have to tackle both West Indies next week and the men’s T20 World Cup in February without their senior seamer Naveen-ul-Haq. The 25-year-old is due to undergo surgery later this month— the board hasn’t yet said what the problem is — and has been formally withdrawn from the touring party and the main World Cup squad.
For the moment the selectors have held off naming a replacement. Three bowlers, leg-spinner AM Ghazanfar and quicks Ijaz Ahmadzai and Zia ur Rahman Sharifi, were already listed as reserves when the provisional World Cup squad was lodged with the ICC, so the cover is there if they want it.
Naveen last played for his country in December 2024. Since then it has been a stop-start run: a stint at SA20 in early 2025, Major League Cricket in the United States, then a shoulder issue that ruled him out of the 2025 Asia Cup. He returned at the ILT20 last winter with MI Emirates, only for the current setback to arrive almost as soon as he found some rhythm again. It is rotten timing, and the side suddenly feels a bowler light.
While Naveen goes under the knife, Rashid Khan is doing the reverse journey. He has left MI Cape Town midway through the SA20 season and flown to the Caribbean to captain Afghanistan in the three T20Is against West Indies. Kieron Pollard has been drafted in by MI Cape Town to plug the gap.
Pollard knows the franchise well — he was stand-in captain in the inaugural edition back in 2024 — and he is fresh from steering MI Emirates to a runners-up finish in the ILT20. His batting numbers there were tidy enough: 225 runs at a strike-rate of 141.5, plus 15 sixes, joint-third on the tournament list. MI Cape Town sit bottom of the SA20 table, so they will take all the help they can get.
The leadership question remains open. Rashid’s departure leaves a vacancy and the franchise say they will confirm a captain on Friday. Rassie van der Dussen, a safe pair of hands, and Ryan Rickelton, currently the competition’s leading run-scorer with 324 at 167, are the obvious options. Rickelton’s two hundreds — both 113, one against Durban’s Super Giants, one against Joburg — make a persuasive case, but van der Dussen has done the job before.
Rashid was MI Cape Town’s most economical bowler at 7.92 an over, and he chipped in with six wickets plus a brisk 36 off 21 balls. Losing him stings, yet Afghanistan need their skipper more. A three-match series in the Caribbean, followed by a World Cup campaign, tends to focus the mind.
