The newly built Ekana International Cricket Stadium in Lucknow, which recently hosted Duleep Trophy matches, is set to be the new home ground of Afghanistan cricket team. The administrators of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and the Afghanistan Cricket Board (ACB) will make an official announcement of that in a joint press conference in New Delhi on Tuesday, as sources have confirmed to Sportswallah.

However, it has been announced that the Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru will host Afghanistan’s maiden Test between June 14-18 against the Indians. Though they will be playing their ‘home’ games at the newly constructed Ekana Stadium, Lucknow.

Bengaluru to host Afghanistan’s maiden Test match, against India, from June 14 to 18. — Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) January 16, 2018

Following a continuous good show at the Associate level, Afghanistan along with Ireland recently acquired Test status from the International Cricket Council (ICC). However due to security issues in the war-trodden nation, the ACB is currently unable host international fixtures at their home turf. In 2016, they approached BCCI for help and the Indian board obliged by providing them the Greater Noida Sports Complex ground on the outskirts of Delhi. Afghanistan have hosted Ireland over there in Inter-Continental (multi-day) as well as limited-overs (ODI and T20Is) matches.

However, there has been a lot of complaints regarding the facilities as well as the pitches at that venue. Thus, after getting the Test status, the ACB did not want to take any chance. They raised this issue to BCCI and now all set to get the permission to host their ‘home’ games at the brand new stadium Ekana International Cricket Stadium, which has been a flagship project of the Uttar Pradesh Cricket Association (UPCA).

The stadium has already acquired international status from ICC. It was supposed to host an ODI between India and New Zealand in the recently concluded three-match bilateral series. However, at the last moment the match was shifted to Green Park, Kanpur as there were some construction works going on at Ekana.

It has also been learnt that the authorities of the ACB recently went to Lucknow to inspect the facilities of the stadium before agreeing to BCCI’s proposal.

The Afghans are currently preparing for the all-important ICC World Cup Qualifiers, which will be hosted by Zimbabwe in March. Two top sides of that 10-team event will feature in the ICC Cricket World Cup 2019 in England.

Whereas their Under-19 team, which is the current Youth Asia Cup champion, is participating in the ongoing ICC Under-19 Cricket World Cup in New Zealand and they have made a winning start by beating the Pakistan colts.

So, there is no doubt that Afghanistan cricket is on the rise.