Kandahar Warriors vs Paktia: APL 2026 head to head

APL head-to-head record

There is no record here yet, and there cannot be one: neither club has played a match. The ACB had not published the fixture list, so there is no date, no ground and no score to report — only the two squads from the 3 November draft in Dubai, set side by side below. The first time they meet, the result will be the first entry in this record. The 2018 meetings between the cities do not count toward it: the Knights and the Panthers were different clubs, and what they did stays with them.

The 2018 meetings: same cities, different clubs

The cities met twice in the 2018 league stage, and the honours were shared. On 12 October the Panthers made 127 in 18.2 overs and bowled the Knights out for 118 in 19.4, winning by nine runs; five days later, on 17 October, the Panthers made 167 for 7 and the Knights chased it down with 168 for 6, winning by four wickets. Both games were played at Sharjah, like every match of that season, and both were the low, tight kind of game where one quiet over settles it.

The table behind those two games shows why the split flattered neither side. The Knights finished fifth and last with two wins from eight, four points and a net run rate of −0.226; their only other win was a 26-run defeat of Nangarhar on 13 October, and two of their defeats — by two runs to Kabul on 11 October and by four wickets to the same side on 16 October — were as close as a game gets. The Panthers finished second with five wins, 10 points and a winning record, the only side besides the champions with one. Their other wins came against Nangarhar by 21 runs on 7 October, against Balkh by 37 runs on 10 October, against Nangarhar again by seven wickets on 14 October, and against Kabul by six wickets on 18 October.

The seasons then went in opposite directions. The Knights went home. The Panthers went to the semi-final and were bowled out for 102 by Kabul Zwanan, losing by 90 runs. Two days later Balkh chased Kabul's 132 for 9 with 138 for 6 in 18.1 overs to take the title — Qais Ahmad took 5 for 18 and was player of the match, Chris Gayle made 56 off 34, and Rashid Khan was named player of the series. The 2018 story of these two cities is a shared one: a split in the league, and then a gulf between fifth and a semi-final.

Two threads from those games reach this fixture. The first is the man who now captains Paktia. Rahmanullah Gurbaz was 16 in the Panthers' 2018 squad, a specialist batter while Mohammad Shahzad kept wicket, and he played five matches for 65 runs — his best innings, 33 off 22 balls with four sixes, came against Balkh on 13 October, in a reply that folded for 106. He made seven off ten in the semi-final as Paktia were bowled out for 102. Eight years on he returns as Paktia's captain, the role he took on 3 November when the ACB swapped him with Rahmat Shah. The second thread is Shahzad himself: the Panthers' leading run-scorer in 2018 with 344 runs, now in Kandahar's Silver round — the man who kept Gurbaz out of the gloves in 2018 now faces the side he carried that season.

Where the squads differ

On paper the two squads are twins: 19 players each, a Platinum pick, two Diamond picks, five Gold picks, five Silver picks, three Emerging picks and two Supplementary picks. The difference is where the draft order put them — and how many overseas players each side ended up with. Kandahar held the first pick of the whole draft and spent it on Muhammad Amir in Platinum; Paktia picked last in Platinum and took Wanindu Hasaranga. Kandahar then opened Diamond with Mohammad Nabi and added Joe Clarke; Paktia spent Diamond on Noor Ahmad and Nahid Rana. Both sides then built the same way, and both finished with a squad that leans on its Afghan core.

The one structural difference is the shape of the spin. Kandahar hold the two most decorated spinners in the fixture — Rashid Khan, the captain, and Nabi, who captained the 2018 champions and made 177 runs and took nine wickets that season — with Allah Noor Naseri in Silver behind them. Paktia's answer is two frontline wrist-spinners in one squad: Hasaranga and Noor Ahmad, with Gerhard Erasmus' part-time leg-spin in Silver. And the overseas lists tell their own story: Kandahar's five are Joe Clarke, Kusal Perera, Tymal Mills, Dwaine Pretorius and George Munsey; Paktia's six are Hasaranga, Nahid Rana, Colin Munro, David Wiese, Erasmus and Olly Stone. Kandahar's Gold round also brought Perera's batting and Mills' pace, against Paktia's Munro, Wiese and Hashmatullah Shahidi.

Key battles to watch

The captains carry the history of this fixture between them. Rashid Khan is the biggest name in Afghan cricket, the bowler every side plans around, and he is leading a side in the city whose 2018 club finished last. Rahmanullah Gurbaz is the opposite kind of captain — a wicketkeeper-batter who made his name at the top of the order, leading the side whose 2018 club finished second. The first time the two walk out for the toss, the tone of the match will be set by which of them imposes himself first: Rashid with the ball, Gurbaz with the bat.

The new-ball duel is the one the crowd will watch. Muhammad Amir, the first pick of the whole draft, is making his APL debut in 2026 — he was not in any of the five squads in 2018 — and the first time he runs in against a Paktia top order that opens with Gurbaz, who hit four sixes in 22 balls against Balkh as a 16-year-old in 2018, will be the contest the season's first meeting is sold on. Amir's left-arm pace against Gurbaz's power at the top is the sharpest single matchup on either squad list, and it is the one the PCB story hangs over: Amir is the only Pakistani player picked, registered as a British citizen, after the PCB refused no-objection certificates to the 30-plus Pakistan players in the draft register.

And waiting in the middle overs is the spin contest: Rashid and Nabi, two men who have won matches for Afghanistan for a decade, against Hasaranga and Noor Ahmad, two wrist-spinners who turn the ball both ways. The side whose spinners go at fewer than seven an over will win most of the matches between these two. There is a smaller duel inside it, too: Mohammad Shahzad, the Panthers' leading run-scorer in 2018, facing the franchise whose colours he carried that season — and the keeper-batter who kept him out of the gloves then, Gurbaz, now leading it.

Coaches and mentors

The dugouts are as strong as the squads. Kandahar's head coach is Ravi Bopara, with Irfan Pathan as mentor; Paktia's is Azhar Mahmood, with Waqar Younis as mentor. Both groups were settled at the leaders' draft on 25 October, nine days before the players were picked, and the full leadership groups are in the mentors, coaches and captains announcement of 2 November. One detail in that announcement is already out of date: it still lists Rahmanullah Gurbaz as Nangarhar's captain, a line the 3 November swap — Gurbaz to Paktia, Rahmat Shah to Nangarhar — made stale. The coaches and mentors are not affected.

When do they play each other?

Not yet — the fixture list had not been published, so the first Kandahar Warriors vs Paktia meeting has no date and no ground. What is fixed is the frame: the season opens on 27 December 2026 in the UAE, the first ball is at 5:30 PM Afghanistan time (5:00 PM Dubai time), and the league has advertised 24 matches. When the ACB publishes the fixtures, the date and the ground — and then the result — will go on this page; until then the schedule and the points table are the places to watch.

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