Afghanistan Cricket Board comes up with the biggest announcement for it's players after T20 World Cup semifinal qualification

The Afghani Cricket Board has announced its plans to organize the next installment of the Afghanistan Premier League in 2025 after the IPL.

This news comes on the same day as Afghanistan's historic win over Bangladesh in the ICC T20 World Cup 2024 in the USA and West Indies. The Rashid Khan-led side has become the first Afghanistani side to reach the semi-finals of an ICC tournament since their introduction to the game of Cricket.

Afghanistan had never made it to the knock-out rounds of any particular event and this marks the first time the country has been among the last fours. It is a moment that Afghan fans as well as cricket lovers around the world will embrace and cherish forever. Their win also reiterates the point that the sport is growing in smaller nations.

A war-ridden country like Afghanistan reaching the semis is a huge thing and for a fact, no one saw this coming. At the moment, they have played better cricket than the likes of New Zealand, West Indies, Pakistan, and Australia who find themselves out of the competition.

Afghanistan will now face South Africa in one of the two semi-finals with the other one taking place between India and England.

ACB confirms plans of re-launching APL in 2025

According to our trusted sources, the Afghanistan Cricket Board ideated the re-launch of the country's franchise league that is the APL. The tournament could have taken place this year itself but due to the congestion of matches throughout the 2024 calendar year. Therefore, months after the 2025 IPL edition.

Due to Afghanistan's domestic scheduling as well as other international commitments, the ACB is reluctant to organize APL this year. The Board's CEO Naseeb Khan told Cricbuzz that their Premier franchise league is in the pipeline and on the cards to take place in 20245 after the IPL re-brands and re-launch the league altogether.

"We are determined to re-launch the APL and working on it to make that happen. We are hoping to start the tournament next year as this year we don't have much time because of our international commitments and domestic schedule and so we are hoping to re-launch the APL at some time after the next IPL." - Naseeb Khan said via Cricbuzz.

Naseeb Khan reveals ACB has received bids from various companies

Naseeb Khan also revealed that the ACB has already received a lot of bids from Tom companies to invest in the APL and buy franchises. The Board has already shortlisted several companies which will be discussed by the top officials in the system before the start of the following steps.

"We had a bidding process and a lot of companies showed interest and now we have shortlisted some companies from the long list and now we will put them on board and after getting approval we will start our next course of action." - Khan concluded.

The first season of APL took place in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in 2018 with Balkh Legends winning the inaugural edition.