India men's cricket will be playing three ODIs against Afghanistan in March 2022, Afghanistan Cricket Board (ACB) announced on Monday. According to the Future Tour Program (FTP) for 2022-23, a total number of 11 ODI, four T20I and two test series have been included in the Afghanistan schedule for the upcoming two years. Apart from the series against India, Afghanistan will be squaring off against Netherlands, Zimbabwe, Australia, Ireland in 2022.In those two years, the national side will play in the Asia Cup in 2022 and the ICC T20 World Cup in the same year, followed by the Asia Cup and the ICC 50-over World Cup in 2023. Afghanistan will kickstart the next year with an ODI series versus the Netherlands and end the year with a three-format series against Zimbabwe.
"If we bifurcate the tally into limited-overs cricket and the test format, it clearly shows that Afghanistan's focus will be on the shorter formats of the game," ACB said in a release. "Considering the fact that Afghanistan will be playing 7 ODI series in the ICC Cricket World Cup Super League, as well as will participate in four major limited-overs events such as Asia Cup 2022 (T20 format), ICC T20 World Cup 2022, the Asia Cup 2023 (ODI format) & the ICC Cricket World Cup 2023," ACB added. The IND vs AFG ODIs will be played as part of the ICC Super League, which will count towards the qualification for the 2023 World Cup. Meanwhile, India will qualify automatically along with the top seven teams from the Super League as the host of the 2023 World Cup. The Super League is a 13-team tournament, which will happen over a period of two years in order to eventually determine which teams qualify for the 2023 ODI World Cup.
