The Other Side of the Barricade

All it takes is a little push

The last few days have felt like a warm hug. Videos and pictures from the Indian team’s victory parade in Mumbai have painted my social media timelines in blue. Each frame bursts with pure, unbridled joy.

I have watched some of the videos on loop. The on-field intensity of Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, and Jasprit Bumrah melts away in their heartfelt victory speeches. Rahul Dravid is at his most endearing self, his voice delightfully rasp, possibly from a heady week. Imagine the chaos: the elation of a cathartic win, a night of celebration that surely bled into dawn, a marathon flight from Barbados to Delhi, going straight from the tarmac to a whirlwind of official duties, and finally, this – reliving the victory with a nation still drunk on the afterglow.

But the stuff that took the breath away came from Marine Drive. Mumbai's coastline was turned into a pulsing artery of love and pride. Words like “packed” or “teeming” don’t quite do justice to the sheer volume of mass. Imagine a human ocean, a surge of blue energy, across two and a half miles. By the evening, with all the street lights and camera flashes, it felt like the open-top bus was gliding on a neon-lit blanket.

Cyberpunk. Credit: Ujwal Puri.

The night ended with the players taking a victory lap around the Wankhede Stadium, led by Kohli and Hardik Pandya, as 30,000 voices roared in unison to AR Rahman’s Maa Tujhe Salaam. You don’t have to like cricket or this team to feel the warmth of that moment. Watch it, click replay, watch it again.

And while that moment, the headlines, and the story is undeniably, unforgettably theirs, there is a part of the movie that belongs to another team in blue. This was the summer where a wonderful side crystallised its well-known talent with a sustained run of results.

Let's do an exercise. If there's a World Cup in five months - actually, there might just be, you never know - and we were to vote in our favourites for the semi-finals, who are we picking? India, Australia, England, South Africa, New Zealand, maybe the West Indies? Maybe, even at a stretch, Pakistan? How many votes are we getting for Afghanistan? Bare minimum. We like the safety of familiarity. Our minds default to established teams with star players – the ones who dominate headlines and big tournaments. And honestly, picking Afghanistan over Australia or the West Indies is a tough sell, even for the most optimistic or clued-in fan.

Thankfully, their players don't think the same way. They strode onto their semi-final against South Africa like they belonged at this stage. Any nerves, even if present, were concealed behind their intensity. A couple of hours later, after a painfully heavy loss, Rashid Khan's face was a study in emotions. Disappointment was tattooed alongside a touch of shock. Coach Jonathan Trott, standing nearby, mirrored the sombre mood. Afghanistan hold themselves to high standards, and this performance - getting shot out for 56 - was well below par.

To secure their place in the semis, Afghanistan had to beat Bangladesh. I dug out a longread from 2015, months before Afghanistan's first ever ODI (50-over) World Cup appearance. By this time, Bangladesh had been a full-member nation for fifteen years, and playing international cricket for nearly two decades. Mohammad Nabi, who was 30 then, and is still a mainstay in the team, was a picture of confidence. “We have better fast bowlers. Our batsmen are more attacking than theirs. Their spinners and fielders are better, but we are physically stronger.”

A bit of that has changed in the last nine years. One, Afghanistan are a far superior fielding side, and two, they have amongst the best spin attacks in the world. Before their game against Bangladesh at this World Cup, they opened the doors to the semi-final spot by beating Australia. And before Australia, they beat New Zealand.

It wasn’t so much a run of upsets but a closure for the business left unfinished in October and November last year. Think back to that balmy night in Mumbai. Afghanistan had already beaten England, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. An ODI World Cup semi-final berth was a dream within reach. As twilight descended on the Wankhede, they had Australia reeling at 91/7, chasing 292. It took a dropped catch and Glen Maxwell playing a superhuman innings to snatch victory from their grip. Australia went on to win the World Cup, and Afghanistan fell just short of the semis, wondering what could've been.

This “what could’ve been” comes from an ambition that burns like a timeless flame. They aren't surprised by their own success; it's the rest of us who need to catch up.

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Cricket at the Chaman-e-Hozari Park in Kabul. Credits: Associated Press

The incredible documentary, Out of the Ashes, begins with Harsha Bhogle’s voice. It is 2010, Afghanistan are playing their first ever game at a World Cup, and he is on commentary.

“Don’t forget, they aren't here by largesse. They’ve won their right to be here.”

After a brief montage of an old man watching over children playing cricket on a rubbled field, the title card fades away to a footage of two Black Hawk helicopters circling above Kabul and news of NATO air strikes displacing 6000 people in Southern Afghanistan. The old man later tells the cameraperson, “As you know, there are a lot of problems in the world. The solution of all those problems is…cricket,” before breaking into a giggle.

That man is Taj Malik. At the time of recording, he was the head coach of the Afghanistan cricket team. Throughout the movie, he is bullish about his team’s prospects and their physical conditioning, even as a British Embassy representative predicts, “They’re going to get stuffed,” with a bout of laughter dripping with condescension. Afghanistan were in their first decade of international cricket, so you can begin to see some logic behind that prediction, but the tone and disdain involved some serious misreading of recent history.

In 2006, when the England Test team were touring India, the Marylebone Cricket Club came down to Mumbai and invited Afghanistan over for a game. The MCC were captained by 48-year-old ex-England captain, Mike Gatting. The idea was to teach the “amateur” Afghans some real cricket. The result? Afghanistan beat MCC by 171 runs.

The Afghanistan side were then called over to England for a series of games against county second teams - a step up from playing 50-year-olds with the fitness levels of walruses stuck in a pool of honey. They won six out of their seven games.

The star of that MCC game was a young Mohammad Nabi. The thread that connects the first steps of Afghanistan cricket to a World Cup semi-final starts with him. To read into Nabi’s career is to understand the drive that has been the perpetual tailwind behind this team.

Their first three World Cup appearances (2010, 2012, and 2014) were a reality check. They had only one victory to their name – against Hong Kong. In response, they recognised the need for a change. As Nabi explained to Siddharth Monga in that 2015 essay, “We were getting the same results again and again. Brilliant against Associates, but we got stuck against bigger teams. So we decided we needed someone with international experience.”

Nabi understood that exuberance and passion, while wonderful traits, can only take you so far. He is candid while citing early examples of how the Afghanistan team lost winnable matches because they let their emotions take over. Leaning on experience and high-level expertise was a necessary vehicle on their journey to international relevance, and they hopped in early.

After beating the West Indies at the T20 World Cup in 2016.

Over the years, they have found two strong friends in their neighbours.

Taj, Nabi, and a bunch of other alumni of the Afghanistan team bowled their first balls in refugee camps in Pakistan. Some of them became good enough to get into local clubs in Peshawar. After the fall of the Taliban in 2001, when they could finally return home and play as a unit, Pakistan lent them training facilities in Lahore and Karachi, and brought them over on regular cricket tours.

India, initially hesitant, eventually became a happy ally. Afghanistan played a lot of their cricket in Noida and Dehradun, including international games against Bangladesh and Ireland. Former India players have worked as full-time coaches too. Afghanistan’s first test match was played against India in Bangalore.

The story that started with Nabi and Taj Malik is now carried by Rashid Khan, current captain, international superstar, and the most sought-after cricketer in franchise T20 leagues. There isn’t a team in the world, franchise or international, that doesn’t wish Rashid played for them.

On 15th August 2021, the Taliban seized back control of Afghanistan. After two decades of blood-stained occupation, the US Government deserted the Afghans by abruptly leaving their country just as a black storm was approaching. No handover of power to a stable government, no time given to locals to take informed decisions on their future. All they could grant was a porous airport gate and a couple of massive military flights, already filled with marines and American diplomats. I’ll spare you the visuals from that morning. The Taliban, left with an open field, rolled in with their jeeps, guns, and missile-launchers. Rashid Khan was in England at the time, unable to evacuate his family. Later that evening, amidst a storm of helplessness and despair, he turned up for Trent Rockets and won them a crucial match.

Last month, after Afghanistan's phenomenal journey to the World Cup semi-finals, a video surfaced of Rashid Khan receiving a congratulatory call from Amir Khan Muttaqi, the current foreign minister and a member of the Taliban. It was a disturbing sight.

The Taliban's return to power has placed Afghanistan cricket under their control, just like in 1995 when the first bricks of an administrative body for the sport were laid. While the Taliban previously opposed all sports, they eventually found tolerance for cricket as it stays within the boundaries of their ideological doctrines.

Actually, scratch that. They like men’s cricket because it works within their ideological boundaries. As you read this, there is no such thing as the Afghanistan women’s cricket team. Any faint hopes that took flight prior to August 2021 were thrown into the incinerator when the first Taliban jeep entered the government headquarters in Kabul.

Last week, Afghan female cricketers living in exile in Australia sent a letter to the International Cricket Council, requesting support in forming a refugee team. They understand they can't represent Afghanistan without official approval from the home board, and are open to playing under a different banner.

The ICC has a regulation mandating that all full-member nations maintain a functioning women's team. Technically, this could’ve led to the Afghan men's team being excluded from major tournaments. The ICC deserve credit for understanding and acknowledging the country’s unique circumstances, but a more definitive action is needed now, particularly when a potential solution has been presented by the players themselves.

The Afghan men have shown, time and again, that they aren’t just an exotic offering at World Cups. Their story is heartwarming, and the warmest part of it all is that they haven’t ever considered themselves fortunate to have reached a place. They know they’ve earned every bit. From the days of geriatric ex-cricketers wanting to teach them cricket, to them having Australia by the throat twice in two World Cups, Afghanistan have continued to produce top-class talents.

And still, with all that done, they are yet to be recognised as a force, as a team worth spending much energy over. Their perceived value is limited to franchise T20 leagues. England, New Zealand, and South Africa have shown no interest in playing Afghanistan outside world events; India have given them one Test match and a pinch full of T20 games in all this time; and Australia, on multiple occasions, have cited “humanitarian issues” to bail out of bilateral commitments.

Considering the quality and flair Afghanistan bring, fully integrating them into the annual schedule should ideally be a matter of immediate attention for the ICC. Setting up a team for their exiled women cricketers is an equally urgent step that cannot be delayed any further.

Out of the Ashes ends as it begins: revisiting Afghanistan’s first ever World Cup game in 2010. Harsha Bhogle, Sanjay Manjrekar, and Matthew Hayden all chime in, acknowledging the incredible story unfolding, before Allan Border applies the punctuation with, “They look ready for the big stage.”

It has been fourteen years and many, many “upsets” since. For all the conviction that Taj, Nabi, Rashid, and countless others have shown, maybe it is time to see Afghanistan as something more than the underdog from a war-ravaged desert.