All-Time XI of players from Associate nations

The game of cricket is slowly beginning to grow as a sport with wider appeal and is reaching places it had never been to before. The number of countries which are playing competitive cricket at the moment is quite large and the foundation for making it a global sport seems to have been laid.The term ‘Associate nations’ refers to those countries who have not been granted Test status yet, but continue to play international cricket on a regular basis, mostly among themselves and also in major ICC tournaments. Some of the primary Associate countries at present include Ireland, Afghanistan, Kenya, Scotland, Canada and Netherlands.We have picked an all-time XI taking into account some of the best performers for these cricketing nations over the years in international cricket.Let’s take a look at the players who made the cut:

#1 Mohammad Shahzad (Afghanistan)

Mohammad Shahzad is currently Afghanistan’s batting hero as he proved with his performances in his team’s recent triumph over Zimbabwe in both ODIs and T20Is. Shahzad has been playing international cricket since 2009 and has performed exceptionally in the two formats that Afghanistan play.

In ODIs, he has close to 1300 runs at a 35 plus average with 4 centuries, the most by any batsman for his country. Shahzad is the leading run-scorer for Afghanistan in T20Is with 1111 runs at an average of just under 31 and an impressive strike rate of slightly below 136.

Mohammad Shahzad is still just 27 years old and seeing the way his country is progressing at the moment, he may have a lot left to do with the bat in his career.