“The series appears to be on and the indications we have got is that the Taliban authorities have given the green light for the series,”   

The Pakistan Cricket Board is confident that the political upheaval in Afghanistan will not affect their ODI series and, in fact, the Taliban authorities have given the green light to the national team to play matches in Sri Lanka as scheduled. A well-informed source in the PCB said that they had got positive signals from their counterparts in Afghanistan about the series. “We are going ahead with our plans and we will announce our squad as soon as the second test against the West Indies ends on 24th August,” he added.

The Afghanistan players have started training in Kabul while the PCB also announced that a training camp would be set up in Lahore from August 21 to 28 for the series with the Pakistan squad scheduled to leave on the 29th for Sri Lanka. It is believed that for the new regime in Afghanistan there was no better way to send out a message to the international community about their soft image than allowing the series to go ahead.

• We are going ahead with our plans and we will announce our squad as soon as the second test against the West Indi