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The national flag under which they play no longer officially exists. The anthem they sing at the beginning of each game belongs to a republic that was overthrown two years ago.
However, Afghanistan’s athletes have become the unlikely – and widely celebrated – heroes of the Cricket World Cup being held in India. In a tournament watched by hundreds of millions of people around the world, they have comfortably defeated the defending world champions and two former champions. Some of the team’s stars are so popular that entire sections of the stadium roar their names. When they win, the players sing and dance from the bench, to the team bus, to their hotel rooms.
The achievements of the Afghan cricket team are amplifying what has already been a surprisingly rapid rise in the history of the sport. They also speak to the potential of a nation marked by frequent violent rifts if it had a little of what this team has. managed: continuity.
To play in this World Cup, the team has depended on a delicate compromise, something that eluded Afghanistan’s political leaders and the many international actors who failed to stop the country’s descent into pariah status. The strangeness of the circumstances is overshadowed by the success of the team.
“People pray for us at home, they sit to watch our matches, for us to win, because cricket is the only happiness in Afghanistan,” Rashid Khan, 25, one of the team’s biggest stars, told his teammates. in a pre-match meeting. before a victory last week.
He emphasized getting the basics right. But he stressed the most important thing: “The most important thing is to keep smiling.”
In a country caught in a spiral of sadness, even small celebrations seem like acts of defiance.
Since the Taliban took power two years ago, Afghanistan’s aid-dependent economy has collapsed, leaving nine out of 10 people in poverty. Nature has increased the misery with earthquakes that have devastated entire towns and killed hundreds of people.
The Taliban regime, which restricts women to their homes, denying them the right to work or an education beyond the sixth grade, is a government that does not enjoy international recognition. Its white flag does not appear in international sports competitions. Afghan teams play under the flag of the republic that fell in 2021.
The national anthem that is played before each game is also a relic. The Taliban do not have their own anthem because they consider that public music is prohibited by Islam.
But the Taliban applaud the cricket team’s success and officials say they have helped the team achieve its current success. Fans in Kabul, Afghanistan’s capital, and other cities take to the streets to celebrate every victory, and rulers send out messages of celebration even as they ignore the black, red and green colors brandished by players and fans in stadiums. and the interpretations of the anthem.
In this environment, players walk a tightrope. Khan and another of the team’s stars, Mohammed Nabi, have created foundations that provide aid to those in need and rushed to help after the recent earthquakes.
Both have issued statements calling for restoring girls’ education.
“We stand in solidarity with our sisters and daughters in Afghanistan in demanding that the decision on the ban on girls’ high schools and the ban on women’s universities be reversed,” Khan said in a statement last year. “Every day wasted on education is a day wasted for the future of the country.”
Cricket has risen to prominence in Afghanistan only in the last few decades. Some of the country’s first players learned the game in refugee camps in Pakistan, after fleeing the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The earliest seeds of the game in the country date back to the last time the Taliban was in power in the 1990s.
A more formal setup was created in the early 2000s, and the team’s rise from there was nothing short of a fairy tale. In just a decade, Afghanistan rose through the ranks and began qualifying for several world championships, including three World Cups.
“We learned cricket as refugees,” said Raees Ahmadzai, a former player who is assistant coach of the World Cup team. “The new generation is our product. “We trained them in Afghanistan.”
Winning the current competition, which is held in the one-day version of cricket, remains a long shot for Afghanistan. But the journey of Khan, the team’s star, illustrates how far Afghan cricket has come.
A decade ago, Ahmadzai said he and his teammates received a monthly salary of $3 and a daily allowance of $25 when they traveled.
Khan raised $600,000 when he started playing in the Indian Premier League, cricket’s most lucrative competition, in 2017, when he was 18 years old. Last year, a new franchise acquired it for almost $2 million.
He is one of the most sought after cricketers in the world and plays in leagues in Asia, Australia, the Caribbean and the United States as a bowler and batsman. He has more than 13 million followers on social media. When he is on the field, a simple glance at the crowd elicits applause and shouts. When the Afghan team bus drives through India, motorcyclists compete to approach its window to say hello or even take a dangerous selfie.
During practice, when the team breaks for afternoon prayer, the team lines up behind Mr. Khan on a plastic mat spread in one corner of the stadium. When the team wins, he is the first to start dancing, leading the celebrations with a boombox in hand.
Mr Khan’s groundbreaking celebrity has inspired an entire generation of younger players, some of whom already play alongside him.
As the team crisscrosses India for the tournament, a small group of fans follows, waving the old flag from the stands and dancing to DJ music banned at home. India has banned Afghans from entering the country since the Taliban took power, making only rare exceptions. Those in the stands are long-time refugees, as well as many who went to India as students and are now stranded there.
After every game the team has won (first against England, the defending champions, then against Pakistan and Sri Lanka), the players have taken a victory lap around the stadium, thanking the Afghan fans and the thousands of Indian fans who they encourage them.
When the team defeated Pakistan two weeks ago, the celebrations were particularly long and loud. There was also a political undertone: In recent weeks, tens of thousands of Afghan refugees have been expelled by Pakistan, whose military has long been seen as contributing to instability in Afghanistan.
To get to that match, one fan, Akhtar Mohammed Azizi, had taken a 10-hour bus ride.
“It was such a great moment that I forgot about everything else; I could only think about positivity and happiness,” said Azizi, who has been stranded in India since finishing his business studies. “I forgot about the lack of sleep, the hunger. “We celebrated, we danced, we took selfies with the players.”
During a break from the celebrations, Ahmadzai, the coach, and Khan, the star player, recorded a video for their fans at home. They recited a Pashto poem that has been the team’s rallying cry for years before dancing again: in the locker room, on the bus and late into the night at the team hotel.
“Roll up your sleeves, get on and dance/
“The happiness of the poor comes only from time to time.”