APL 2026 Teams: Five Franchises, Captains & Coaches

Write the five names down before you write the legends. Akcel United Kabul. Balkh Zwanan. Kandahar Warriors. Nangarhar Cosmic. Paktia. The last of those is still 'Team Paktia' in the draft release. No flashier nickname has been confirmed, so this site does not award one.

Captains, after the Afghanistan Cricket Board's note on 3 November 2026: Omarzai at Kabul, Ibrahim Zadran at Balkh, Rashid at Kandahar, Rahmat Shah at Nangarhar, Gurbaz at Paktia. The last two are the correction. For a few days the graphics had them the other way around. Draft regulations, the board said, and both camps had agreed. The draft piece has the pick order next to that switch.

Coaches are a proper lineup, not a list of honorary names. Mickey Arthur at Balkh, Ravi Bopara at Kandahar, Shane McDermott at Kabul, Toby Radford at Nangarhar, Azhar Mahmood at Paktia. Mentors beside them: Dilshan, Irfan Pathan, Nikhil Chopra, Mark Boucher, Waqar Younis. The board's model was that franchises picked captains and head coaches from a shortlist, while the ACB appointed other coaching staff. Assistant coaches are not named on this page because the public list did not itemise them.

Owners are the uncomfortable paragraph. In August, reports attached AKCEL's Amit Kaushal to Kabul, Pankaj Chadha and Ashish Mehta to Kandahar, and Shakaib Rahimi to Balkh. On 2 November ESPNcricinfo said the board had not yet formally announced the owners. Both sentences can be true. A name in a report is not the same as a name on a letterhead. Glance boxes on the team pages leave ownership as to be confirmed.

The 2018 map is useful only as a warning. Knights last, Leopards and Panthers in the semis, Zwanan in the final, Legends champions. None of those clubs are on the 2026 team grid. City pride is allowed. Inherited points are not.