Afghanistan appoint Graham Thorpe as new head coach

Afghanistan have been without a permanent head coach since November, when former South Africa allrounder Lance Klusener left the role

Graham Thorpe is the new head coach of Afghanistan's national team.

Thorpe was most recently England's batting coach, before being sacked from that post in the aftermath of the winter Ashes tour.

He made the headlines following the end of the series after a video he filmed of a drinking session between England and Australia players being broken up by Tasmanian police found its way into the public domain.

Afghanistan have been without a permanent head coach since November, when former South Africa allrounder Lance Klusener left the role.

Thorpe was briefly in the running to replace Stuart Law as Middlesex's first-team coach but didn't make the final shortlist, while Law subsequently took over briefly as Afghanistan's interim head coach in February.

Last week, it was announced that Afghanistan would tour Ireland in August for five T20Is as part of their build-up for the T20 World Cup in Australia.

^{Stuart Law was Afghanistan's interim coach for last month's series against Bangladesh (Munir Uz Zaman/AFP via Getty Images)}

In November, the ICC formed a working group to determine the future of the game in Afghanistan following the Taliban's return to government. Cricket Australia postponed a one-off Test scheduled for Hobart if the regime didn't permit women to play cricket.

"The ICC Board is committed to continuing to support Afghanistan Cricket to develop both men's and women's cricket moving forward," said ICC chairman Greg Barclay said in a statement at the time.

"We believe the most effective way for this to happen will be to support our member in its efforts to achieve this through its relationship with the new government."

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