Egerton has pulled off a coup with the signing of Afghanistan legend Asghar Afghan for their 2022 Greater Manchester Cricket League campaign.

A legend of the game

Afghan is, quite simply, a legend of Afghanistan cricket. He was at the forefront of his country’s rise to become a global force in the great game.

Afghan, who recently retired from an illustrious international career that spanned well over a decade, captained most of his national matches. In fact, he holds the record for the most consecutive T20 international matches as captain (46) and sits 6th in the combined Test, ODI, and T20 records (78).

One of his country’s finest batters

An imposing, powerful batter, Afghan represented his country in 195 matches, scoring 4,246 runs including centuries in both ODI (101 v Ireland) and Test (164 v Zimbabwe) cricket. It’s a shame Afghanistan only broke into Test cricket in 2018, as he certainly would have scored plenty of runs at the highest level of the game. That said, in his 6 Tests he still racked up 440 runs at 44, including fifties against Ireland (67), and Bangladesh (92, 50), alongside his century against Zimbabwe (164).

Still plenty left in the tank…

For more than a decade, Afghan was his country’s middle-order glue. However, in the shorter formats, he was an incredibly destructive batter – something he continues to evidence post-retirement. In the recently concluded Legends League, he finished second to Upul Tharaga on the Asia Lions run charts (148 runs at 74) and topped the tournament strike rate with 206.45 (minimum 80 runs). Playing against some of the biggest names of yesteryear, he produced scores of 14* (7), 41 (26), 24 (10) v World Giants, and 68* (28) v India Maharajahs.

Now set for Manchester stint

Now he has left the international game, he is seeking global opportunities and is now set to play a UK club stint in 2022. Whilst known for his destructive batting, he is also a useful medium-pacer who is looking to showcase his all-round talents with Egerton for their Greater Manchester Cricket League campaign this summer.