CAS­TRIES, St. Lu­cia – For­mer cham­pi­on St Lu­cia Kings have suf­fered a ma­jor blow, with Afghanistan’s star left-arm wrist­spin­ner Noor Ah­mad ruled out of the 2026 Caribbean Pre­mier League sea­son af­ter the Afghanistan Crick­et Board re­voked his No-Ob­jec­tion Cer­tifi­cate (NOC), the fran­chise con­firmed in an of­fi­cial state­ment on Wednes­day.

The 24-year-old, who was in­stru­men­tal in the Kings’ cham­pi­onship run in 2024, will not trav­el to the West In­dies at all this sea­son, leav­ing a gap­ing hole in the team’s bowl­ing at­tack just as the tour­na­ment heats up.

“Noor will no longer be avail­able to rep­re­sent the Saint Lu­cia Kings for the re­main­der of the tour­na­ment,” the fran­chise said. “The fran­chise is dis­ap­point­ed that Noor will be un­able to join the team and wish­es him all the best.”

The sud­den with­draw­al is a bit­ter pill for the Kings, who have a long his­to­ry with the Afghan prodi­gy.

Ah­mad orig­i­nal­ly signed with the then-St Lu­cia Zouks in 2020 but was forced to miss that sea­son due to un­re­solved visa is­sues.

He fi­nal­ly made his de­but for the fran­chise in CPL 2024. He de­liv­ered a dream cam­paign, play­ing all 12 match­es and fin­ish­ing as the tour­na­ment’s lead­ing wick­et-tak­er with 22 scalps at a sen­sa­tion­al econ­o­my rate of just 6.19, play­ing a piv­otal role in lift­ing the tro­phy.

While the loss of their pre­mier spin­ner is a sig­nif­i­cant set­back, the Kings have moved quick­ly to re­in­force their squad in a dif­fer­ent de­part­ment.

In a sil­ver lin­ing for the fran­chise, ex­plo­sive New Zealand open­ing bat­ter and wick­et­keep­er Tim Seifert is en route to Saint Lu­cia. He is ex­pect­ed to link up with the team im­mi­nent­ly.

Seifert’s ar­rival is set to add se­ri­ous fire­pow­er to the Kings’ top or­der. The dy­nam­ic Ki­wi, known for his ag­gres­sive stroke­play and rapid scor­ing, is ex­pect­ed to slot in as an open­er or at No. 3 po­si­tion.

CMC