Kabul, February 24, 2026: The Afghanistan Cricket Board (ACB) is pleased to announce the appointment of Richard Pybus as the Head Coach of the Afghanistan National Team. He will join AfghanAtalan ahead of the upcoming white-ball series against Sri Lanka in March.
Richard Pybus is a globally respected cricket leader and performance
director with a distinguished international coaching career. He is a three-time
ICC Cricket World Cup-winning Head Coach & Director of Cricket and brings a
wealth of elite-level experience and a proven record of building
high-performance systems.
His recognized coaching journey includes serving as Head Coach,
Director of Cricket, and Head of High Performance for the West Indies cricket team
from 2013 to 2019. During this period, he designed and managed the
high-performance structure that led to a historic treble of ICC World Cup
victories in 2016, when the West Indies Men’s, Women’s, and U19 teams all
secured world titles in a single calendar year, which marked the first in the
history of international cricket.
Previously, Pybus served as Head Coach of the Pakistan National Cricket Team and guided the side to the ICC Cricket World Cup Final in 1999, which they lost
to Australia. He has also held a senior leadership role with the Bangladesh Cricket in 2013. Domestically, he has a strong coaching record in South African domestic &
franchise cricket, where the teams under his guidance secured nine championship
titles, which is also a national record. Additionally, he was named South
African Cricket Coach of the Year twice.
He has also played a significant role in the development of individual
players, including Pakistan’s Mohammad Rizwan and South Africa’s Faf Du
Plessis. Additionally, he worked with Dale Steyn and helped him become one of
the greatest bowlers in the history of cricket.
Beyond his on-field accomplishments, Pybus is a highly respected
academic and performance strategist. In 2022, he received a Doctorate in
Professional Practice from Middlesex University in London in recognition of his
research on the principles behind the “Optimal Performance System.” This
framework is designed to achieve consistent and winning results across various
cultures and high-performance environments.
In addition to his Doctorate, Pybus holds a postgraduate degree from
Greenwich University in London and a BA Hons degree from Portsmouth University
in the UK.
He is a Level Four CSA Certified Coach and has an Executive Coaching
Certificate from the Neuroleadership Institute. Furthermore, he is a Certified
Performance Coach and a Master's Level NLP Practitioner.
Afghanistan Cricket Board warmly welcomes Richard Pybus and wishes him success in his new role as Head Coach of the Afghanistan National Team.
-ENDS-
For further information, please contact:
Commercial
Department
Afghanistan
Cricket Board (ACB)
Email: Marketing@Afghancricket.af
Website: www.acb.af