My name is Raees Ahmadzai, and I have been on the Afghan National Cricket team for the past ten years. I am originally from the village of Azra in Logar, which is a province close to Kabul. I am from the Kuchi tribe, the nomads who have historically wandered between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Team mates Mohammed Nabi and Dawlat Ahmadzai also come trom this tribe.
I am writing this blog for many reasons. I want to share the history of cricket in Afghanistan, as well I would like to provide comment on our current place in cricket history, and most importantly I want to discuss with you what the future holds for Afghan cricket. This blog will cover some of the background of Afghan cricket, and help fill the gaps of knowledge that some readers may have.
Tennis ball cricket in the refugee camps in 1992 is where it all began. Dusty pitches, no shoes and no bats. We used our mother's washing sticks to attempt hitting sixes over the rocky boundary. Most of the time we were using bricks for wickets. We created our own rules and regulations which usually ended in daily fights beating each other with our improvised bats.
You may think to yourself – what kind of cricket is this? For us at that time, each match was like we were playing in the world cup. We spent our whole day at school waiting for the class to finish so we could run out and play cricket.
Fast forward ten years and I was crossing the border back into Afghanistan for the first time. It was 2002 and Afghanistan had been completely annihilated by war. I had come back to Afghanistan for cricket. Taj Malik and Allah Dad Noori had organized a trial for the tournament to be held in Pakistan. When we arrived in Kabul we had no idea how to find them. There was no mobile phone network. I asked Karim, "How are we going to find Taj?" He said, "Lets just go to Wazir Akbhar Khan (a neighborhood in Kabul) and I am sure we will see people playing cricket."
We did find Taj, and we managed to make it to the first tournament to Pakistan which we unfortunately lost. We had no money and we all slept in one room, but it was an important turning point in Afghanistan's cricket history. The momentum had started. The British Embassy supplied us with neckties, and some equipment. We continued to practice with the dream that one day we would play in the world cup, and that one day the Afghan people would be proud on what cricket has achieved and stop referring to it as a 'Pakistani game'. Yes we grew up in Pakistan, but it wasn't because we wanted to. A war forced us out of our country, and now we had been allowed to come back, and we were bringing something back with us that we felt all Afghans could embrace and be proud of.
2002 – 2006 was a whirlwind of tournaments in Malaysia, Kuwait, England, India and Pakistan. In 2006 in the match we played against the MCC in India, where Mike Gatting was taken out for a duck by Hastigul Abed, was when the international community finally saw the potential of Afghanistan's cricket team. At that time I was the Captain. From this tournament the MCC selected Hameed Hassan and Mohammad Nabi for the Young Cricketers program at Lords.
In 2001 we became an affiliate member of the ICC and an associate member of the ACC. These two organizations have provided Afghan Cricket with enormous support that enabled us to take the first step on to the ICC Divisions ladder starting in Division 5 in Jersey in May 2008.
As many of you know 2008 – 2009 was a year of unprecedented success for Afghanistan in cricket terms. We won Division 5 in Jersey, Division 4 in Tanzania, and Division 3 in Argentina. We had won a place to compete in the qualification for the 2011 World Cup. We thought that there was no chance to lose any match. Lose wasn't in our vocabulary. Winning was crucial, and we were so upset when we didn't qualify for the 2011 World Cup. We all were in tears that we hadn't achieved our goal. We wanted to play England, we wanted to play on television, we wanted to show the world that Afghanistan is a cricketing nation.
I will never forget the first ODI match against Scotland that took place in South Africa after the qualification games had ended. That was the moment I realized I was a professional ODI player. The pressure had been off of us because we had already missed out qualifying for the World Cup, and we beat Scotland by a big margin. All of a sudden the giant leap we had taken from having nothing, to being considered good enough to play a one day international match was emotionally overwhelming.
We were happy to be able to continue to travel and play cricket, refining our game and increasing our experience. Qualifying for the ICC T20 in February 2010 was an amazing opportunity. We did that with style and skill we didn't have one year earlier.
We felt ready to take on the great cricketing nations, and when we boarded the first class flight to the West Indies, we were not only professional ODI players, we were now world class cricketers.
So what does the future hold for Afghanistan's cricket team? We have come so far in such a short time. But we have big hurdles ahead. Afghanistan is still in a fragile state. We need to put our focus on building the grassroots of cricket. I feel so strongly about this that I started an NGO called the Afghan Youth Cricket Support Organization (AYCSO). Working with the MCC and Afghan Connection we are holding cricket camps around the country using the National team members as the coaches. (For more information see aycso.com).
I am so pleased that what we achieved in the past few years has meant that young Afghan kids are interested in wanting to follow in our footsteps and keep Afghanistan in the high cricketing position that we have attained. From a sport that no one knew about a few years ago, cricket has now become the #1 sport in Afghanistan!
It was hard to believe the amazing success that Afghanistan cricket has had in the past six years. I can say that this has been largely because of the dedication and hard work of the players. We wanted to do something for Afghanistan and we worked our hardest to make it happen. We had hoped that this was a legacy that Afghanistan's future cricket stars would embrace. We had built it with the hope we were starting a legacy, but unfortunately, the structures that need to be in place for grassroots cricket to really take off are still nowhere to be seen in Afghanistan.
I write this blog with sadness in my heart, because when I look at the state of Afghan cricket today, even though our success is high with the recent ranking of #1 in the Intercontinental Cup, the key components for building a future for Afghan cricket is missing. The investment in grassrooots cricket in Afghanistan still hasn't happened. We do not have any professional grounds, proper academies in Kabul, or a club cricket structure to put young Afghan cricket enthusiasts through. With the ICC pouring hundreds of thousands of dollars into the ACB, plus the investment from the US embassy in Kabul, $350,000 from Etisalat and $200,000 from Supreme Group. we should be in a much more advanced position.
Our young cricketers are waiting for the ACB to build the grounds and the academies. The children I train through my NGO, the AYCSO, are eagerly awaiting the opportunity to play on turf pitches, and to have access to proper facilities. The youth of Afghanistan deserve this. Although it is easy to dole out advice when you are on the outside, I do see that streamlining the Afghan Cricket Board would benefit the future of Afghan Cricket. A CEO, team manager, domestic manager, development manager and an accountant should be sufficient. We should be spending money on facilities, not on salaries of people who aren't essential.
Afghanistan has a reason to be proud of their cricket team and the possibility for the future, but the ACB must act now. The two year ODI status that we earned is almost over, and we still haven't played any ODI matches with a test country. The Sharjah stadium,which was kindly gifted to Afghanistan, sits empty.
We must start a salary structure for the Under 19, 17 and 15 players. With ACB management taking monthly salaries ranging from $800 USD to $2500 USD there is little left over to help out the struggling new talent. The incentive for the youth to play is slowly diminishing.
Our ranking may be 12 or 13th in the world, but what does it mean if all the talent is squeezed into the very top. With no back up players, or stables of talent how long will the National team have to play in order to keep up our ranking.\n \nWhen I look at our current structure, I feel that the future of Afghan cricket is not bright. There must be plans to help encourage the youth of Afghanistan to participate in cricket. There must be structures for them to participate in. Our focus should be on the World Cup 2015, otherwise we will end up like Kenya. I remember when Kenya was a force to be reckoned with, and beat the West Indies in the World Cup. Kenya had actually made it to the semi–finals of the World Cup. Now Kenya struggles against Afghanistan , Scotland, Canada and Ireland. Their lack of planning for the future should be a lesson for Afghanistan. We don't want to take steps backwards after all the achievements that Afghan cricket has made