Kabul: On January 3, 2023, the Afghanistan Cricket Board announced that Gordon James Parsons will serve as the National U19s’ mentor for the ICC U19 Men’s Cricket World Cup in 2024 and that former South African hitter Andrew George Puttick will take over as the National Team’s new batting coach.
In just three games, left-handed opening batsman Andrew Puttick of Western Province, South Africa, achieved his first-class century on his FC debut in 2000–01. Despite having only participated in one ODI match, Puttick has a lengthy domestic career with 173 first-class matches, 172 List A matches, and 83 Twenty20 matches under his belt. He scored over 17000 runs, including 40 hundreds and 85 fifties.
Andrew George Puttick most recently worked as the batting coach for the Pakistan Men’s National Team in 2023 as part of his coaching profession.
Along the way, he has held positions as assistant coach of South Africa A, batting coach of the South Africa Men’s Emerging Team, batting consultant for the South Africa Women’s Emerging Team from 2019 to 2023, and batting consultant for the South Africa Women’s National Team from 2019 to 2020.
The National U19 Team’s mentor for the ICC U19 Men’s Cricket World Cup 2024 will be Gordon James Parsons, an English-South African with a strong domestic record in both South Africa and England.
Parsons had an impressive career that included 338 FC and 351 List A games. He was a right-arm medium-fast bowler and left-handed batsman. In both the FC and List A formats, he amassed 6763 runs and 809 wickets, in addition to 1941 runs and 351 wickets in the former.
A one-year contract has been given to Andrew Puttick, who will play for the Afghanistan national team in the next three Twenty20 international matches against India. In the meantime, James Parsons has already been to South Africa to coach the Afghanistan National U19 Team Future Stars in the run-up to the ICC U19 Men’s Cricket World Cup 2024.