Big-ticket stars picked up for Afghanistan T20 League

Afridi was picked up by Paktia, Russell by Nangarhar, Gayle joined Balkh, and McCullum Kandahar, while the fifth team, Kabul, had national-team superstar Rashid Khan as their biggest signing.

At least 34 overseas players are set to be part of the inaugural edition of the tournament, scheduled between 5 October and 23 October at Sharjah Cricket Stadium. The draft was held on Monday, 10 September.

Players from England (Ravi Bopara, Sam Billings, Chris Jordan, Luke Wright, Laurie Evans, Tymal Mills), New Zealand (Luke Ronchi, Colin Munro, Mitchell McClenaghan), Australia (Ben Cutting, Ben Laughlin), Pakistan (Wahab Riaz, Sohail Tanveer, Mohammad Irfan, Faheem Ashraf, Iftikhar Ahmed, Kamran Akmal, Mohammad Hafeez), South Africa (Colin Ingram, Wayne Parnell, Cameron Delport), Sri Lanka (Thisara Perera), Bangladesh (Tamim Iqbal, Mushfiqur Rahim) and Ireland (Paul Stirling) will feature in the tournament.

The Associate nations are represented by Ryan ten Doeschate of the Netherlands, Nepal's Sandeep Lamichhane, local boy Mohammad Naveed and Scottish batsman Calum McLeod.

As for the Afghan national heroes, Mohammad Shahzad went to Paktia, Mujeeb Ur Rahman to Nangarhar, Mohammad Nabi to Balkh and Asghar Afghan to Kandahar.

"It is an honour to play in your own league," Khan told Khaleej Times. “Now is the time for youngsters from Afghanistan to come forward and show their ability. It will be an opportunity for them to share the dressing room and also rub shoulders with the likes of Shahid Afridi, Chris Gayle and others.

"If you see the BPL [Bangladesh Premier League], IPL [Indian Premier League] and Big Bash [League, Australia], these leagues helped their countries do well. They got a lot of youngsters from those leagues. So we are hoping it does the same for the Afghanistan youngsters.”