Abdullah Ahmadzai

Profile details

FULL NAME

Abdullah Ahmadzai

PLAYING ROLE

Bowler

TEAMS

Balkh Zwanan

Twenty wickets in fourteen months — then a Gold wildcard

Abdullah Ahmadzai is Balkh Zwanan’s Gold wildcard — a 23-year-old right-arm fast bowler from Nangarhar who took 20 T20I wickets in his first 14 matches for Afghanistan. He made his international debut in September 2025, and APL 2026-27 is his debut in the league.

Ahmadzai joins Balkh Zwanan as the last of the club’s five Gold picks of the 2026 draft — a wildcard selection, taken from the Silver category in the final Gold round, at the player draft in Dubai on 3 November 2026 for a reported $40,000. He is 23, a right-arm fast bowler from Nangarhar, and he arrives with 20 T20I wickets in 14 matches for Afghanistan behind him, all of them taken in the fourteen months since his debut.

That is a fast start by any measure. His T20I debut came on 5 September 2025 against the UAE, and he has taken wickets at better than one a match ever since — the kind of strike rate that gets a bowler picked as a wildcard, because the draft’s normal rounds had already passed him by.

He is new to this league. Ahmadzai did not play in the first APL season in October 2018 — he was 15 at the time, and his first senior match did not come until years later. Balkh are captained by Ibrahim Zadran and coached by Mickey Arthur, with Tillakaratne Dilshan as mentor, and Ahmadzai gives them a wicket-taking quick who has already done the job for his country.

Role, style and draft pick

Bowler — right-arm medium-fast, wicket-taker in the powerplay and at the death.

Captain: Ibrahim Zadran. Head coach: Mickey Arthur. Mentor: Tillakaratne Dilshan.

APL 2026-27 numbers — none yet

The season starts on Sunday 27 December 2026, so no APL 2026-27 figures exist for any player yet — not for Abdullah Ahmadzai, and not for anyone else in the league.

There are no APL figures for Ahmadzai yet. The 2026-27 season has not started, and he did not play in the 2018 season — he was 15 at the time. His first APL numbers will come after Balkh’s first match.

Where he fits at Balkh Zwanan

Ahmadzai is the wildcard that tells you how Balkh’s draft went. Balkh Zwanan used their last Gold pick on a 23-year-old with fourteen months of international cricket behind him, because a bowler who takes 20 wickets in 14 T20Is does not stay a secret for long. He bowls alongside Luke Wood’s left-arm pace and Christopher Wood’s experience, and his right-arm speed gives Arthur a third seam option when the spin-heavy middle overs need a break.

In a double round-robin where every team plays eight league matches, a quick who strikes early changes games — and Ahmadzai’s international record says he strikes. The season starts on Sunday 27 December 2026 in the UAE, and the final is on Wednesday 20 January 2027. APL Schedule will carry Balkh’s dates once the fixture list is published, and the season in full is on APL T20.