Hazratullah Zazai replaces injured spinner in Afghanistan squad

Afghanistan have announced top-order batter Hazratullah Zazai as the replacement for injured off-spinner Mujeeb Ur Rahman in the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2024 squad.

Mujeeb Ur Rahman featured in Afghanistan’s tournament opener against Uganda, however, a recurrence of the index finger injury kept him out of the following games against New Zealand and Papua New Guinea (PNG).

The off-spinner also missed the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024 due to the same injury and is now out of the ongoing tournament after confirmation from the ICC.

The ICC Event Technical Committee approved Afghanistan’s request to replace the off-spinner with Zazai, who was with the squad as a travelling reserve.

Follow us on our Official WhatsApp channel

Zazai played the last of his 43 T20Is in February against Sri Lanka. He has scored 1138 runs in the format at a strike rate of 133.09.

It is worth mentioning here that Afghanistan qualified for the Super 8 stage of the T20 World Cup 2024 after emerging victorious in all three of their fixtures in the group stage.

They are leading Group C standings of the 20-team tournament with six points, closely followed by West Indies, who boasts a similar record but an inferior net run rate.

Afghanistan Squad for T20 World Cup

Rahmanullah Gurbaz (wk), Hazratullah Zazai, Ibrahim Zadran, Azmatullah Omarzai, Najibullah Zadran, Mohammad Ishaq, Mohammad Nabi, Gulbadin Naib, Karim Janat, Rashid Khan (c), Nangyal Kharoti, Noor Ahmad, Naveen-ul-Haq, Fazalhaq Farooqi, Fareed Ahmad Malik

READ: Ruthless New Zealand decimate Uganda to register first win in T20 World Cup