Afghanistan to be ‘home’ team in Delhi against India. How will the money flow?

Yet Afghanistan is the designated home side. That arrangement may look unusual but it is not new. Afghanistan has spent years using venues outside the country as its home base because of the practical difficulties involved in staging international cricket at home. India has been one of the countries willing to provide that home, giving Afghanistan access to established stadiums, broadcast infrastructure and a cricket market that is among the world’s largest.

The arrangement also raises a business question that is less visible than the fixture itself: when a foreign cricket board hosts a series against India on Indian soil, how does the money flow?

The answer is more complicated than simply saying that the home board gets all the revenue. The commercial rights, venue arrangements, sponsorship inventory, ticketing and production costs depend on the agreements between the boards, the host association and the relevant commercial partners. But the basic structure offers a useful window into how bilateral cricket works as a business.

Afghanistan vs India (T20I series)

No.	Date	Day	Venue
1	13-Sep-26	Sunday	Delhi
2	15-Sep-26	Tuesday	Delhi
3	17-Sep-26	Thursday	Delhi

Why Afghanistan needs a home away from home

Afghanistan’s cricket story has been built around playing much of its international cricket away from home. The country has produced a team capable of competing with established cricket nations, but staging international cricket domestically presents obvious logistical and security challenges. As a result, the Afghanistan Cricket Board has used overseas venues as home grounds at various points.

India has been part of that ecosystem, with venues including Greater Noida, Dehradun, Lucknow and Delhi featuring in Afghanistan‘s international schedule. For the visiting side, there is also a practical benefit. India does not have to travel to a third country for the fixture.

Players, broadcasters and support staff are operating in an established cricket market with familiar infrastructure. For Afghanistan, meanwhile, the arrangement allows the board to stage a home fixture without having to build and maintain an international cricketing ecosystem from scratch. That is where the economics become interesting.

The word ‘home’ matters more than the geography

In bilateral cricket, home and away status is a commercial designation as much as a geographical one. The fact that a match is being played in Delhi does not automatically make the BCCI the host board. The series is governed by the bilateral arrangement between the two cricket boards, and the designated host carries responsibilities associated with staging the fixture.

That can include negotiating the venue, arranging match operations and production, dealing with local authorities and managing commercial inventory. The stadium’s physical location and the ownership of the series are not necessarily the same thing.

A foreign board can therefore use Indian infrastructure to stage what is commercially its home fixture. That creates a very different calculation from an India home series.

So where does the money go?

Broadcast and digital rights

Broadcast rights are generally the biggest commercial asset in a major India international fixture. But it would be too simplistic to assume that because Afghanistan is designated the home side, the ACB automatically pockets every rupee generated by the broadcast.

The rights are governed by the relevant bilateral and commercial agreements, and different territories can have different arrangements. What is clear, however, is that the host board sits at the centre of the commercial negotiation around its home series. A fixture involving India is particularly valuable because Indian cricket commands enormous television and digital audiences.

For Afghanistan, the opportunity is therefore not simply about filling a stadium. It is about turning an India fixture into a commercially valuable international property. That can provide an important source of income for a board whose cricket economy is far smaller than India’s.

The bigger prize: Using India as the market

There is another reason the Delhi arrangement is commercially interesting. Afghanistan does not need to take the match to Dubai or another neutral cricketing market to access Indian audiences. The game is taking place in the world’s biggest cricket economy.

That means the ACB can potentially benefit from the commercial ecosystem surrounding the Indian team while avoiding the cost and complexity of creating an equivalent ecosystem elsewhere.

For Indian broadcasters and sponsors, the attraction is obvious: they still get India playing international cricket, regardless of which board carries the formal hosting designation.

For Afghanistan, the value lies in having India as the opposition while using an established Indian venue. It is effectively a foreign-hosted home game without leaving the Indian cricket market.

But Delhi is not a free stadium

There is an important cost sitting underneath the headline revenue numbers: the venue. The Arun Jaitley Stadium is not an Afghanistan Cricket Board asset. The local cricket association has its own costs and commercial arrangements.

The ACB therefore has to work with the DDCA and other local stakeholders to stage the match. That means venue-related expenses can include stadium usage, ground operations, security, staffing, hospitality and other match-day requirements, depending on the contractual arrangement.

The equation of hosting this game thus comes closer to Host board (in this case Afghanistan) = commercial responsibility + revenue opportunities − the cost of staging the fixture. The size of that final number depends on the terms negotiated for the series. And those terms are precisely where the most interesting business story sits.

Why India benefits from the arrangement too

There is a tendency to look at Afghanistan’s overseas home games purely as a concession to the visiting board. But India also has something to gain. The BCCI gets to play a bilateral series without carrying the entire burden of hosting it as the home board.

The Indian team remains in familiar surroundings, while the local association gets the opportunity to use its stadium for an international fixture. There is also a broader benefit for Indian cricket infrastructure.

International matches require stadiums to remain operationally ready, from broadcast facilities and floodlights to security systems, hospitality and match-day staffing. Overseas boards using Indian venues provide another avenue for that infrastructure to be utilised. For the DDCA, the commercial calculation will be different from that of a standard India home match but still holds value.

And then there is the ticketing question

A packed India match in Delhi has obvious commercial value. But the distribution of gate receipts and hospitality income depends on the contractual structure of the fixture.

The designated host may control some commercial inventory, while the venue operator or local association may retain or receive agreed portions of venue-related income. That makes the ticketing business another part of the larger settlement rather than a straightforward transfer of every ticket rupee to one particular board.

For Afghanistan, though, the attraction remains clear: India gives its home fixture a scale of demand that few other opponents can provide.

The Afghanistan model is a lesson in cricket’s changing geography

There is a larger story here than one India-Afghanistan series. Cricket’s traditional model was simple. A board hosted matches in its own country, sold its broadcast rights, filled its stadiums and monetised its home advantage.

Afghanistan’s experience shows how that model can be separated into its individual components. A board can retain the status of home side while outsourcing the geography of the match.

The venue can be in another country. The audience can largely belong to the visiting team. The infrastructure can belong to another cricket association. Yet the series can still function commercially as a home fixture for the designated host.

That is increasingly relevant as international cricket expands beyond the traditional infrastructure of the major boards. For emerging cricket nations, access to venues is not merely an operational requirement; it is part of their business model.

New ‘host’, new ‘broadcaster’

Since India is not the official host, JioStar, which holds massive domestic and international cricket broadcasting rights in India, will not be broadcasting these three T20Is. Instead, fans will be able to watch the matches on FanCode.

Afghanistan Cricket Board CEO Naseeb Khan said, “Our partnership with FanCode continues to grow, and we are pleased to extend it for this landmark series against India. Afghanistan cricket enjoys a strong and passionate following in India, and through FanCode’s extensive digital reach, we look forward to bringing our fans closer to the action and providing them convenient access to the series.”