NEW DELHI: Afghanistan keep coming up with surprises in world cricket. This one came on Thursday. By the time more than half of the cricketing world woke up, the under-19 Afghan boys had brushed aside New Zealand in Christchurch by 202 runs to make their maiden semifinal in an ICC event.
After the meteoric rise of the senior team, the emergence of Rashid Khan as a global star and their exploits in U-19 cricket, Thursday’s win in the U-19 World Cup’s quarterfinal was waiting to happen. And yet, when it came, it caught many unawares.
“We sent our team as contenders, not just participants. We started a robust programme two years ago. We targeted reaching at least the semifinals,” Afghanistan Cricket Board’s CEO Ashfaq Stanikzai claimed.
Coming from the head of cricket operations in a nation which got its first-class status only a couple of months ago, this claim may sound audacious to most followers of the game. It is a result of the robust effort put in by the ACB to popularize cricket over the last few years.
The team sheet of the Afghanistan team in New Zealand tells you that they fielded an effectively under-18 team with most boys being either 16 or 17 years old. Afghanistan was firmly in the grip of Taliban rule when these players were born. “Not a single man played cricket around 2000-01,” Stanikzai told TOI on Thursday.
Interestingly, the Zadran brothers in the U-19 team – opening batsman Ibrahim and leg-spinner Mujeeb – are from the second generation of the first family Afghanistan cricket. They are the cousins of Dawlat Zadran, a veteran in the senior team. The Zadrans have built a ground and an academy inside the compound of their home which nurses talent. In essence, they have propagated the culture of cricket in the country. “Cricket became popular only around 2007-08 when we won the Associates championship,” Stanikzai said.
Like the senior team, ACB has kept these boys on the road. They are trained in Greater Noida and Bangladesh even as the board brought in professional PR firms to popularize the game back home. The idea came after realizing that football was struggling to take off. “We invested in the game as a project. Posters were put up in several places and that got young boys playing. We reached the rural areas and got deep into the country to find talent. Now, cricket is the No.1 sport in Afghanistan,” a proud CEO exclaimed.
ACB has done well to set up a system to compete on the world stage but they are yet to penetrate more than half of the country. “Most players come from the eastern and southern part of Afghanistan,” informed Stanikzai. These areas touch the border of Pakistan, thus promoting cricket has been relatively easier in these parts.
“At the moment we are trying to reach out to the northern part of the country. We are expecting a few players from there to play the next U-19 World Cup,” Stanikzai said with optimism.
Mujeeb Zadran (left) celebrates with his teammates