Moeen, Hales Lead England Contingent for APL 2026

Eight English players have signed for the first season of the Afghanistan Premier League — and the two biggest names among them, Moeen Ali and Alex Hales, will give the new tournament instant recognition in England. There is, though, a condition hanging over all eight deals: none of them is certain yet. Their participation depends on the International Cricket Council sanctioning the league, and that approval has not been granted.

The draft in Dubai

The signings came at the player draft in Dubai on Tuesday, 3 November, where ninety players were picked from a shortlist of 462, drawn from around 1,500 registrations. Moeen, the former England all-rounder, was Team Balkh's Platinum pick — the first name on their list — while Hales, one of the most destructive openers in the short format, went to Nangarhar Cosmic in the same top bracket. The remaining six were spread across three more squads: Joe Clarke and Tymal Mills joined Kandahar Warriors, Olly Stone went to Team Paktia, and Luke Wood, Tom Moores and Chris Wood all landed at Team Balkh, giving Ibrahim Zadran's side a distinctly English flavour.

Signing at the draft is only the first step. Every overseas player needs a No-Objection Certificate from their home board, and the England and Wales Cricket Board has made clear that its certificates will only follow an ICC sanction. The board has indicated it will grant them, reluctantly, in part to avoid restraint-of-trade complications — but until the ICC signs off, the paperwork cannot move.

The sanction process is still under way. It weighs minimum staging standards, including anti-corruption and anti-doping measures, and the ICC's own application form requires the board behind the event to share full details of the franchise owners. That is a live issue for the APL: only three of the five franchises have been sold, and two teams — Team Paktia and Team Balkh — went into the draft under generic holding names. Whether the sanction arrives is not yet clear, though such approvals have come late before — the first European T20 Premier League was signed off only days before it began earlier this year.

A debate that split the England dressing room

The English involvement has been argued over for weeks. Rob Key, England's managing director, encouraged players to take "the right moral stance" last month and said he would not have played in the league himself, pointing to the treatment of women in Afghanistan. Three England players — Ollie Pope, Will Smeed and David Willey — withdrew from the draft after the backlash over their possible involvement, and Tonia Antoniazzi, the Labour MP who led calls for England to boycott their Champions Trophy fixture against Afghanistan last year, urged players to weigh the implications carefully.

The board itself refuses to play bilateral cricket against Afghanistan because of the Taliban government's treatment of women and girls, which United Nations experts have described as "gender apartheid". The exiled Afghanistan women's team toured England this summer and continues to push for greater recognition. Against that backdrop, the eight who did sign — none of them centrally contracted — have made a very different calculation from the three who walked away.

Amir, Munsey and Morgan add to the English connection

The English thread runs further than the eight. Mohammad Amir, the former Pakistan fast bowler, entered the draft as a British citizen and won a deal with Kandahar Warriors, the side led by Rashid Khan. Scotland opener George Munsey was also signed, with Cricket Scotland expected to take a similar line to the ECB on certificates. And England's 2019 World Cup-winning captain Eoin Morgan was part of the draft broadcast as a pundit, calling it "an exciting day, the start of a new journey that I'm looking forward to."

A captain swap on draft day

The draft also produced a late surprise at the top of two squads. Rahmanullah Gurbaz and Rahmat Shah swapped teams as captains on Tuesday: Gurbaz moved from Nangarhar Cosmic to lead Team Paktia, while Rahmat went the other way to lead Nangarhar. The Afghanistan Cricket Board said the switch followed a decision by the APL Technical Committee and mutual agreement between the owners and captains. Nangarhar's ambassador Mark Boucher was caught off guard, telling reporters: "Your guess is as good as mine."

What happens next

The league, run jointly by the Afghanistan Cricket Board and promoters Trans Group and ITW Universe, is due to launch on Sunday, 27 December, with the first season staged in the United Arab Emirates. Twenty league matches in a double round-robin will be followed by four knockout games, ending with the final on Wednesday, 20 January. The league's marketing material also points to games at the Kabul International Cricket Stadium in future years. Between now and the first ball, though, the question that matters most for the eight Englishmen is the one only the ICC can answer.