Afghanistan: A castle from ruins

A Fairy Tail indeed..given the warn torn recent history and the unbelievable lack of resources.

when I see Zim and now afganistan......how little BD has progressed is what becomes evident

http://www.wisdenindia.com/cricket-blog/afghanistan-castle-ruins/79968

Afghanistan: A castle from ruins

Suresh Menon
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7 October 2013


The Afghan fairy tale needs an injection of higher levels of competition. © ICC/ Saleem Sanghati

Their captain Mohammad Nabi’s father was kidnapped earlier this year. A player, Rahmat Wali, was shot dead by American forces. Just over a decade ago there were no cricket grounds, no proper training centres, no organised cricket, not even a national cricket board. Afghanistan qualifying for the 2015 World Cup is testimony to what can be achieved when passion meets persistence.

Fairy tales are the lifeblood of sport. Yet, even in a society that casually accepts talking animals and houses made of chocolate and grown men flying around in capes with the ability to see through walls, the story of Afghanistan’s cricket must seem like imagination gone wild. Would the Grimm Brothers have dared write a story like this?

Tim Albone’s book on the start of the current journey begins with Taj Malik carrying a cricket bat and crossing into Afghanistan from Pakistan while the Taliban fighters are fleeing “the unlikely alliance of US bombers, Special Forces and ragtag Afghan militia”. Malik, an Afghan living in exile wants to put together an Afghan cricket team and take it to the World Cup. No minor ambitions here. As Albone puts it memorably, Malik is “travelling in the other direction towards the chaos”.

From this chaos grows an organised sport. It grows quickly. A local tournament is held. Impressed by a broadcast on the BBC, an editor from Wisden sends Taj an application form to the ICC. It is faxed via Sri Lanka, from where it is handed over to the UAE Ambassador in Colombo who faxes it to his colleague in Islamabad who passes it to the Taliban ambassador in Pakistsan who then takes it to Kabul and hands it over to the cricketers.

In 2001, Afghanistan were made Affiliate Members of the ICC; in 2009, after nearly qualifying for the World Cup in 2011, they were granted ODI status. This year they became Associate Members of the ICC. They have qualified for two World Twenty20s and played Australia and Pakistan in One-Day Internationals. In August, they beat India in the Asian Cricket Council’s Emerging Teams Cup in Singapore. These are the bare facts; behind them lies a story of skill and commitment, of vision in a nation with little history of cricket, of players and officials looking within themselves for both inspiration and resources.

The early years are as much about learning to channelise talent on the field as getting larger systems into place. Age, place and date of birth are not specific, but the subject of family legends while securing passports for the trip to Malaysia for the ACC Trophy in 2004. Taj’s brothers, Hasti and Karim, both gifted players (and born of the same mother) have birth dates only 48 days apart! There are punch-ups on the field as selection policies are called into question. Afghanistan finish fifth among 18 teams. Two years later they finish third, losing in the semifinals because they haven’t heard of Duckworth-Lewis. During this time they are in the bottom rung of world cricket, division five.

Families have to be persuaded to let sons play cricket for the country. Afghanistan’s first century-maker, Nowroz Mangal, is given a piece of land and a tractor by a local businessman in 2006. That year, an MCC team visiting India play Afghanistan in Mumbai. Afghanistan make 356 in 40 overs and dismiss MCC for 185. Mike Gatting is bowled for a duck. Mohammad Nabi, then 21 and captain of the team which qualified for the 2015 World Cup, scores a century. In two years, from 2006, Afghanistan rise from 90th to the mid-30s in world ranking.

Soon after their first important tournament win (Division Five, in Jersey, 2008), a suicide car bomb kills 41 at the Indian Embassy in Kabul, a US missile accidentally kills 27 of a wedding party, the Taliban execute an Afghan MP and eight policemen are killed in Kandahar. Raeez Ahmedzai, batsman and off-break bowler, who was in the team in Jersey, was lucky to escape with his life at the Embassy bombing.

As often happens to pioneers, with the national team doing well, Taj Malik is found to be excess to requirement. His immense self-confidence, his passion, his single-minded pursuit (stated in unambiguous terms at every tournament) of taking his country to the World Cup have served the team well until now. But now they need a professional. Someone who is calm, who has played international cricket and understands its pressures. Someone who can both calm the team down when it is getting excited as well as whip up energy levels when it feels down.

Enter Kabir Khan, former Pakistani international, who, as a bonus also speaks Pashtu, his father being Afghan. He is coach as Afghanistan win Division Four in Tanzania. And as he takes his team into the final of the World Cup, the sport’s biggest multi-team tournament, it is easy to imagine the pioneers thinking that now when people hear the word ‘Afghanistan’, they will think not of war but of sport, of resilience.

One Kabul-born has already played Test cricket. This is India’s Salim Durrani, allrounder, movie star and eternal crowd favourite. But that is an accident of birth. What Afghanistan need now is higher levels of competition. Perhaps an Afghan team can be invited to play in India’s domestic limited-overs tournament. Or even the Duleep Trophy. Seldom does the story of a World Cup reveal itself two years before the event. No matter who wins in 2015, Afghanistan have won on a scoreboard that records more than the runs made and wickets taken.

Surely, it is not a fairy tale, but not less than that also. from the urns of terror these boys have made it to a place, which is still a dream for many. Afghan cricket will surely get a new height. While watching the match in World T-20 last year, India vs Afghanistan, a situation was when India was struggling at 22-2(4), itself tells a story of this young team. Not only in bowling but in batting also, they scared us with 75-2 in 11 odd overs, creating a situation of India's defeat. While looking at that match, I was thinking that this is the team that in future will reach its height, now they are qualified for World Cup 2015, symbolizes their steps moving ahead. Cricket should be promoted and encouraged, and I hope in future, Afghan cricket would prosper. Good Luck boys, we want you to win.

Fair play to Afghanistan, great achievement in getting to the world cup. What makes me sick though are the ICC taking some credit for the achievement and posting stories about how great it is in Afghanistan qualifying for the world cup. This coming from the very organisation that tried to deny them the opportunity to do so in the first place by trying to reduce the world cup in 2015 to the 10 full members. HYPROCRITES

The following link:
http://www.espncricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/678293.html
is a very good article at where Afghanistan cricket finds itself at the moment, its potential and what is preventing them from reaching their potential. Furthermore it shows once again what a bunch of HYPOCRITES the ICC (International Cozy Club) are

Excellent analytical and thoughtful article from Tim, much better than the usual misty eyed and at times patronising rubbish we have been getting. Nobody should be surprised that Afghanistan have made it to the world cup, although the board obviously deserves a lot of credit for putting the structures in place to support the grass root numbers.

The point that Afghanistan by virtue of being a "poor" country actually gets an advantage over the likes of the Netherlands, Scotland, even Ireland because with the same funding they can employ so many more people is well made. It is another complete incoherence of the ICC funding system which the Woolf review attempted to address.

As is the point about Women's cricket being pretty much non-existent there. In general, were cricket to try to gain access to the Olympics I suspect that women's cricket (or lack thereof in quite a few countries) may prove a bit of a sticking point. Of course given that the powers at the ICC (which is to say India and a few others) have decreed that this is contrary to cricket's (i.e. their immediate) interest, this is a bit of a moot point for now.

I particularly enjoyed the reminder: "But the ICC obviously suffers from amnesia. Remember, it was the ICC - or more accurately, the boards who wield all the power - that wanted to restrict the World Cup to a ten-team invite-only affair."

It was indeed a very good piece from Tim - who has been working on it for some time. It follows up a similarly superb long-form piece from Jarrod Kimber on Ireland. I wonder if other Associates will be looked at too?

I would go as far to say that, in the bowling department, Afghanistan are a class above everybody else in the Associate world - including Ireland. They have three pace bowlers: the tall and pacy Hamid Hassan, the skiddy Dawlat Zadran and the Ishant Sharma-esque left-armer Shapoor Zadran (the most erratic of the three) that would probably get into, or at least close to, most Full Member line-ups, particularly those of India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. Add in all sorts of spin and the medium-fast of Gulbadin Naib and you have a top, top bowling attack.

Batting is the Achilles heel at the top level at the moment. As Tim points out they have twice badly collapsed in World T20 games. As Associate level it is good enough but the gung-ho style employed by several of the top-order is predictably challenged against Full Member attacks. Hopefully the injection of youth will help remedy that.

The youth side of things, even more than the current success, is perhaps the most exciting thing about Afghan cricket right now. These are the results from the last U19 Asian Qualifying event -

http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/series/629248.html wrote:

. OK, it was all Associate/ Affiliate opposition, and in some cases fairly weak opposition. But the manner of victory is what stands out - a 395 run win (!) over Thailand and, perhaps even more impressively, two thrashings of UAE. I'll be following their progress at the U19 World Cup with interest - I'd expect them to finish in the top 8 and perhaps even challenge for a semi-final place. Their batsmen are scoring big runs at this level and so hopefully there are some technically correct batsmen coming through to balance out the slogging of Shahzad and Nabi.

The women's game remains a challenge. Strictly speaking they shouldn't be an Associate nation. The requirement to be able to raise a women's team was presumably waived on the grounds that, in very difficult circumstances, there has at least been some progress.

I'd like to see a couple of Afghan players over here in county cricket. Unfortunately institutional factors make that difficult - work permit regulations etc.

But overall progress is very good. Right now they are already good enough to challenge for the right to be called the 9th best team in the world. Who knows how much further they could get?