MCC considers Afghanistan tour

The MCC is contemplating a tour of Afghanistan, extending a commitment to developing cricket in the country which has seen it provide pitches in the capital, Kabul, organise fixtures against the national side and arrange coaching courses.

The commitment has come from Phillip Hodson, the MCC president, who will follow up his official visit to Afghanistan by a personal visit to Pakistan.

Hodson told BBC Test Match Special: "I am going to Afghanistan to look at Kabul and the cricket pitches we have put in. Then I will go to Lahore as a private citizen. There is much more chance of taking a team to Afghanistan than there is to Pakistan. We could do something in Afghanistan and I don't think it will be long away.

"Afghanistan is an emerging country in cricket terms and its national team has made dramatic progress in recent years, going from the equivalent of a standing start to competing alongside the sport's leading teams.

Afghanistan qualified last week for the 2012 World Twenty20 in Sri Lanka, their second successive appearance in the tournament. Many Afghan players learnt how to play the game as refugees in Pakistan after fleeing decades of violence.

Pakistan has been a "no-go area" for major international cricket since an armed terror attack on the Sri Lanka team bus during a Test match in Lahore in March 2009, but the logic of MCC's willingness to consider a tour of Afghanistan ahead of Pakistan will not be universally recognised.

Any tour would come in defiance of persistent attacks on British troops serving as part of the US-led NATO force in Afghanistan. Further details of touring plans may emerge after the MCC's annual general meeting in May.

MCC tours characteristically comprise a mix of county players past or present and club cricketers and the MCC's continued worldwide status - they are still the arbiters of the Laws -- would mean the tour would be bound to attract a measure of attention.

Hodson, who is in Sri Lanka watching the Galle Test, has presented the Sri Lankan charity, the Foundation of Goodness, with a cheque for £28,000 ($44,500) at the MCC Cricket Ground a few miles further up the west coast in Hikkaduwa. The initiative began after devastation was wreaked in this and other areas by the Boxing Day tsunami in 2004.

The money was donated by the Club's charitable arm, the MCC Foundation, and will contribute towards the sustainability of the MCC Centre of Excellence in Seenigama, alongside funding eleven new cricket scholarships for talented local players.

"Cricket is a fantastic tool to bring communities together," Hodson said, "and the fact that MCC can help to fund new state of the art facilities and cricket scholarships to aid the development of the next generation of Sri Lankan players is excellent."