Graham Thorpe Appointed As New Head Coach Of The Afghanistan Team

Former England batter and batting coach Graham Thorpe has been named the head coach of the Afghanistan team, the Afghanistan Cricket Board (ACB) announced on Tuesday, March 29, 2022. Thorpe, who played 100 Tests for England between 1993 and 2005 will replace Lance Klusener in the position, who stepped down after his 2-year tenure ended.

In his 100 Tests, Thorpe made 6744 runs at 44.66 with 16 centuries and the best of unbeaten 200*. He has also represented England in 82 One Day Internationals (ODIs) during the period, having scored 2380 runs at 37.18 with 21 half-centuries to his name in the format.

After retirement from the game, Thorpe took positions of batting coach with various national and domestic teams, the biggest of them being the batting coach for the English National team from April 2011 to September 2019. He has worked with all the England players across international formats, completed 6 England lions tours and 12 England senior men’s tours.

Graham Thorpe To Take Over From Interim Coach Stuart Law

Thorpe was also the batting coach of the England team when they won their maiden 50-over ICC World Cup in 2019. He was promoted to assistant coach of the England team under Chris Silverwood and his tenure came to an end with England’s 0-4 Ashes 2021-22 debacle against Australia down under.

The left-handed former middle-order batter will take over the coaching duties from Australia’s Stuart Law, who has been in charge of the national set-up in an interim capacity. ACB had considered a host of names for their national coach post including Azhar Mahmood and Misbah Ul Haq from Pakistan.

“The ACB had launched the recruitment process for hiring a new head coach, through which Graham Thorpe was selected as the best available nominee for the position,” the board said in a press release.

As for Afghanistan’s upcoming cricketing assignments, they are scheduled to tour Ireland for one Test, three ODIs, and three T20Is in July which will be Thorpe’s first outing with the team. They will then play in the Asia Cup in September and then will travel to Australia for the T20 World Cup 2022.

Afghanistan is fourth in the ICC ODI Super League with seven wins from nine matches and 70 points in their bag. The team is also ranked eighth in the ICC Men’s T20I rankings with 232 ranking points.

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