Richard Pybus replaces Jonathan Trott as Afghanistan head coach

KABUL (Agencies): The Afghanistan Cricket Board has appointed England-born Richard Pybus as the new head coach for their national team. He will be at the helm across formats and will join the team ahead of the white-ball series against Sri Lanka in the UAE next month. Pybus replaces Jonathan Trott, who departed from the role after spending three years in it at the conclusion of their T20 World Cup campaign. Pybus’ own playing career was cut short by a spate of injuries – he only ever played one List A match, for Suffolk in 1986 – but he found success coaching teams around the world. He was Pakistan’s head coach from 1999 to 2003, which included overseeing their run to the final of the 1999 ODI World Cup. He had a short-lived tenure as the head coach of Bangladesh in 2013, and also spent six years, from 2013 to 2019, working with the West Indies team: as their director of cricket, a high-performance expert, and finally, their head coach. He also had stints with Middlesex in England country cricket, and Border as well as the Titans in South Africa’s domestic leagues. His past experience might be crucial to reviving the fortunes of Afghanistan, who suffered a group-stage exit at the ongoing T20 World Cup, after losing their first two matches to New Zealand and South Africa respectively, in what had been dubbed as this year’s ‘group of death’. He will join the team in March in UAE, where they will play Sri Lanka in three ODIs and three T20Is between March 13 to 25.