Afghan cricket caught out by Australian embassy

Is there no limit to Australia's ruthless drive for world domination of cricket?

Poor little Afghanistan is the latest nation to be possibly caught indirectly in the green and gold juggernaut.

In the week the war-scarred Afghan cricket team play their first pitched battle at home since the events of September 11, they learned on Monday their ground is to be taken over as a site for building embassies and the team must find a new location.

"We hear the Australians, the Egyptians and the Bangladeshi embassies are going to be built on our pitch," said Afghan Cricket Association (ACA) president Allah Dad Noori.

"Maybe the Australians are scared of us," he said with a laugh. "They don't want us to get better."

Australian officials were not available for comment.

WICKETS AND SHEEP CARCASSES

Cricket is Afghanistan's third most popular sport after buzkashi, a local favourite involving horsemen competing for a calf or sheep's carcass, and soccer.

It is emerging from a dark period when the fundamentalist Taliban's religious police often jailed players for practising when the then rulers of Afghanistan said they should be praying.

Players were warned not to shave and forced to bat and bowl in W.G. Grace-type long beards, a major irritant in the heat of the Afghan summer when the game is played.

"It was such a bad time," said Noori. "I am a fast bowler and Glen McGrath, my hero, should try bowling in a long beard."

The ACA, an International Cricket Committee affiliate member since 2000, has sent out appeals for help to get the game back on its feet.

"We haven't got any facilities for cricket. We haven't got a ground, we have mainly left hand batting gloves. We have one pair of wicketkeeping clothes and just one new ball. We need help," said batsman Doulat Khan.

The first faltering step takes place on Wednesday when the team plays an 11 from the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) of international peacekeepers at their base.

Asked if the ISAF players would mainly be British, ISAF spokesman Colonel Neil Peckham said: "Probably. We asked the Italians but they didn't seem too interested."

Mindful of the crowd chaos that ensued in the sport-starved nation when ISAF played an Afghan soccer team last month, only 150 spectators will be allowed. Media coverage has been banned.

Far from lacking confidence despite a shortage of experience, one player said the ban was to stop ISAF feeling publicly humiliated when the Afghan team won.

"They are mainly English after all," he said.

READY FOR ALL COMERS

Noori said world cricket had a responsibility to ensure the sport thrived in Afghanistan because it was the cradle of the game.

Noori boasted that cricket grew from a centuries-old Afghan game called "Top dandah" in which a player hits a ball and then runs to a base before he is tagged.

"The British soldiers at the time of the Raj saw it and took it back to England," he said.

People riding bicycles and women with burkhas were chased off the pitch as the team practised on Monday.

The cricketers also share the space, the only flat piece of land available in Kabul, with soccer players and horsemen practising buzkashi.

ACA vice president Taj Malik said the team's eyes were on the next World Cup. He estimated there were 2,000 full-time players in the country.

"We are so talented," said Malik. "We can take on Bangladesh, Scotland, Holland and also can compete with New Zealand and Sri Lanka."

Noori said Afghanistan's cricketing heroes were McGrath, Australian batsman Ricky Ponting, spinner Shane Warne and Indian leading batsman Sachin Tendulkar.

"We like Shane Warne," Noori said. "He is so angry and dangerous."

Mail Cricket Editor