The Afghanistan men's national team (, ) represents Afghanistan in international cricket. Cricket has been played in Afghanistan since the mid-19th century, but it was only in the early 21st century that the national team began to enjoy success. The Afghanistan Cricket Board was formed in 1995 and became an affiliate member of the International Cricket Council (ICC) in 2001 and a member of the Asian Cricket Council (ACC) in 2003. After nearly a decade of playing international cricket, on 22 June 2017, at an ICC meeting in London, full ICC Membership (and therefore Test status) was granted to Afghanistan. Alongside Ireland, this took the number of Test cricket playing nations to twelve. It is the first country to ever achieve Full Member status after holding Affiliate Membership of the ICC. The team is ranked 9th in Twenty20 International (T20I) cricket as of January 2021, and holds the world record for the highest ever T20I score, with their score of 278/3 against Ireland at Dehradun on 23 February 2019. In August 2021, concerns and doubts were raised over the participation of the Afghanistan national cricket team in the future international matches ever since Afghanistan was brought under the control of the Taliban. Concerns were raised over the safety of Afghan national cricketers and their families who were still in Afghanistan during the Taliban takeover on 15 August 2021. , three of the Afghanistan women's national cricket team had evacuated to Canada, while the others were afraid of how they, as women, would be treated by the Taliban. Taliban spokespersons stated that the Taliban would not disrupt the men's cricket team's participation in international matches and that they would allow Afghanistan to play its first ever bilateral series against Pakistan in Sri Lanka which was scheduled to start in September 2021. The Pakistan Cricket Board announced in August 2021 that the tour would be rescheduled to 2022. As of November 2022, the tour had not taken place. Despite the political turmoil, Afghanistan cricket team's media manager Hikmat Hassan confirmed that Afghanistan would participate in the 2021 ICC Men's T20 World Cup. History Pre-ODI history The earliest record of cricket in Afghanistan is of British troops playing a match in Kabul in 1839, though it appears that no long lasting legacy of cricket was left by the British. In the 1990s, cricket became popular amongst the Afghan refugees residing in Pakistan, and