Melbourne, July 2 - World No. 1 ODI team, Australia will play the
emerging Afghanistan in the Middle East next month in the latest step
that recognises Afghanistan's increasing importance in world cricket.

The game has been organised as a warm-up for the Australia-Pakistan
series, which immediately precedes the ICC World Twenty20 tournament in
Sri Lanka, in which Australia, Pakistan and Afghanistan are all
competing in September-October.

Cricket Australia (CA) chief executive officer James Sutherland said
Australia had been actively looking for a chance to play Afghanistan
for some time and found an opportunity once details of the imminent
Pakistan-Australia series in the Middle East had started to become
clear.

"Everyone in world cricket have been really impressed with how cricket
has flourished in Afghanistan, despite its pressing national problems,"
he said.

"As an ICC member, CA strongly supports world cricket's ambition for
cricket to continue to develop as a global sport and that, combined
with the strong relationships between our two countries, encouraged us
to look at how we might recognise and encourage Afghanistan by playing
them on the field."

"We also look forward to hosting Afghanistan in the ICC Under-19 World Cup in Australia in August."

Sutherland said the details of the Afghanistan fixture had been
finalised in off-line discussions at last week's ICC Annual Conference
in Kuala Lumpur.

The Afghanistan game is being scheduled to allow the Australian team to acclimatise before taking on Pakistan. (IANS)