Members of the Afghanistan cricket team received cash incentives and had a quiet celebration among themselves after their historical win against Bangladesh at the Asia Cup, said officials and players on Sunday. Afghanistan president Hamid Karzai and finance minister Omar Zakhilwal called them up immediately to send their congratulatory messages and it was learnt that each member was given 1000 dollars as bonus for the victory.
After the famous win, the team went back and all the cricketers offered their prayers before going back to sleep. Upon waking up, they arranged a dinner party at the pool side of their hotel on Sunday.
‘We did not have anything last night. Probably we will have some sort of a party tonight,’ Asghar Stanikzai told New Age on Sunday.
Apart from the cash incentive, the Afghans received another reward by meeting the criteria for inclusion in the Reliance ICC ODI Team Rankings table for the first time ever. They are now 12th with 32 rating points.
An ICC media release on Sunday
said that in order to gain promotion to the main rankings, Afghanistan needed to either win two ODIs against Full Members, or achieve one win in an ODI against a Full Member and also needed to have won more than 60% of their qualifying matches against other Associates (as shown on the Associate/Affiliate ODI Rankings).
Afghanistan immediately achieved a ranking upon entry into the table, having played 12 ODIs since August 2010, with the minimum requirement being eight matches.
Afghanistan’s 32 ratings points come from the results of these 12 ODIs and the ranking of its opponents at the time the matches were played.
-With New Age input
