Proud to be an Afghan: Cricket in the Shadow of War
When Raees Ahmadzai first became aware of cricket he was eight years old and living in a refugee camp in Pakistan’s Northwest Frontier Province. It was 1992 and Pakistan were about to win the Cricket World Cup. Like millions of other Afghans, Raees and his family had sought refuge in neighboring Pakistan after the Soviet invasion of 1979. There, cricket was already an established passion. “I was in school at the refugee camp when Pakistan won the 1992 World Cup … Everyone was happy, the teacher was happy, people were celebrating. We’d say, what’s this World Cup” Raees recalled. Little did Raees know that the game he was watching, but barely understood, would go on to change his life. “‘Slowly slowly we started playing cricket … For maybe five or six years we played cricket without shoes, or without anything. Even in 45 or 50 degrees heat. That was tough.” Raees quickly excelled. He started playing league matches in Pakistan and became a central figure in the emerging Afghan cricket team. Games such as cricket and football were banned and condemned by the Taliban in the early years of their austere rule, which began in…