For years, Afghanistan’s best cricketers have lit up dressing rooms and scoreboards in other people’s tournaments. IPL, CPL, PSL, ILT20, SA20, BBL — Afghan names are now stitched into the fabric of global T20 cricket.
Now, at last, they are getting a league that carries their own flag.
APL steps out of the shadows
The Afghanistan Cricket Board (ACB) will relaunch its own T20 league at the end of the year, with the Afghanistan Premier League (APL) set to begin on December 27. The twist: the first ball of this “home” league will not be bowled in Kabul or Kandahar, but in the United Arab Emirates.
ACB has confirmed that the inaugural edition will be staged at ICC-approved venues in the UAE, with the door deliberately left open for future moves. The league’s organisers have made it clear: from the second season onwards, the APL could shift to alternative venues outside the UAE if and when conditions and strategy align.
For now, the priority is to get the product on the field — and make it look and feel like a serious, global T20 property.
Three franchises locked in, two more to follow
The new APL will launch with five franchises. Three are already signed. Two more are in advanced discussions.
Of the confirmed teams, two are in Indian hands. Amit Kaushal, founder and chairman of AKCEL Group, has taken charge of the Kabul franchise, named Akcel United Kabul. The Kandahar team, Kandahar Warriors, has been bought by Pankaj Chadha and Ashish Mehta of Bullfrog, a Dubai-based business group already familiar with the T20 circuit through their ownership of Pokhara Avengers in the Nepal Premier League.
The third confirmed franchise carries a distinctly Afghan-American flavour. Entrepreneur and long-time supporter of Afghan cricket, Shakaib Rahimi, has secured the Balakh team, Balakh Zwanan.
Talks are ongoing for the remaining two franchises, with the ACB and its partners engaging a couple of billionaire business magnates from the United States and several Indian corporates. The message is clear: this is not a small, improvised tournament. The APL wants heavyweight, long-term investors.
Building a ‘living league’
To get there, the ACB has handed the league’s operational and commercial reins to Cricket Ventures LLC-FZ, a UAE-based company that runs the APL through a joint venture with the MENA subsidiary of ITW Universe.
Bhairav Shanth, Co Founder of ITW Universe, framed the ambition in sharp terms. The mandate from ACB, he said, was “simple and ambitious”: to rebuild the APL as a professionally run, internationally visible T20 property that not only showcases Afghan talent but also gives investors a decade-long runway.
This week’s announcements in Dubai — the first three franchises, their identities, and the unveiling of the Koh-E-Zafar trophy — mark the point where that ambition starts to look real. The trophy itself carries a mountain motif, chosen as a symbol of a cricket nation that has climbed through extraordinary circumstances to reach the top tier of the world game. It is not just decoration; it is a statement.
Now comes the hard part.
A tight countdown to first ball
The calendar is unforgiving. Player registration opens on 30 August. The inaugural draft will be held less than a month later, on 27 September. From there, it is a straight sprint to opening night on 27 December.
In that window, organisers must finalise the remaining franchises, secure commercial partners, lock in broadcast arrangements, and craft a fan experience that can stand beside other Afghanistan-linked properties already in the market. The bar has been set high internally: leagues only work when owners see a genuine asset, players see a clear pathway, and brands see a clean, high-attention platform.
That is the standard the APL has publicly set for itself.
Afghan players have already proved they belong on the biggest stages in franchise cricket. The question now is whether their own league can rise to the same height as the mountains on its trophy.
