Cricket & Afghanistan
Wednesday, 23 October 2013There’s so much international bad news out there it’s a delight to have some good news and, from a surprising place. In February 2015 the International Cricket Council’s Cricket World Cup takes place in Australia and New Zealand. The 10 big teams of international cricket – Australia, Bangladesh, England, India, New Zealand, Pakistan, South Africa, Sri Lanka, the West Indies and Zimbabwe – are automatically in. Four other teams can qualify to take part.
And what team has been performing so amazingly well that they’ve already qualified, over a year ahead of time?
Afghanistan. When the team came back from their qualifying game against Kenya in the UAE the traffic jams shut Kabul down as thousands of Afghan cricket fans came out to cheer them home. There’s been a lot of talk about how sport has brought Afghanistan together and the team’s captain, Mohmmad Nabi, summed it up: ‘I have never felt happiness like this ever before in my life. I feel very proud, proud for our team, proud for our supporters and proud for our whole country. I am so glad that this is something that gives our whole country something to celebrate, something to make us happy together.’
I’m not a cricket fan, but I’ll be supporting Afghanistan when they turn up in Australia and, as I’ve said before, if you want a weekly dose of good news from Afghanistan then click here and subscribe to Kabul-e-News.
