How cricket fever swept Afghanistan
On the eve of a new film about the sport that inspired a shattered nation - fittingly titled Out of the Ashes - Julius Cavendish of the Independent recounts the rise of the game, from Kabul.
Nitin Sundar
25-Feb-2013
On the eve of a new film about the sport that inspired a shattered nation - fittingly titled Out of the Ashes - Julius Cavendish of the Independent recounts the rise of the game, from Kabul.
In the aftermath of the 2001 invasion, the notion of a national cricket team began to coalesce as millions of Afghan refugees returned from exile. The team swapped the pitted concrete wickets of the Kacha Gari refugee camp for four nets and a temperamental bowling machine in Kabul – known collectively as the Afghan National Cricket Academy.
Nitin Sundar is a sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo