Will Afghanistan move from promise to fulfilment?

It is a remarkable achievement for a nation to take up a sport more or less from scratch and, within 20 years, take part in the world's leading tournament. For a war zone it's more like a miracle. Afghanistan's journey to the cricket World Cup is one of the most extraordinary tales in the history of sport.

It is easy to be blinded by romanticism: and certainly the first part of the story is as lush and colourful as anybody could wish. But the second part is about the hard-nosed pragmatism of professional sport. It's the combination of these two things that has taken Afghanistan to these impossible heights.

Cricket made a tentative start in the country 20 years ago, for it had the unique distinction of being a sport permitted by the Taliban. But it was the fall of the Taliban in 2001 that transformed the sporting landscape of this troubled country.

Many Afghanis had been exiled in Pakistan during the rule of the Taliban: and inevitably, they caught the terrible infection of cricket. So when they returned in numbers across the border, they brought cricket with them, not just in the form of bats and balls but in the form of soul-deep passion.

It was expressed in huge hitting and hurricane bowling: a game of immense drama and passion. The cricketing meme spread across the country at impossible speed, and soon every open space had a cricket match. So much is understandable, but the point is that it went on from there.

This imported game became an expression of national unity, and it went on to become an expression of national ambition. Part of the great national ambition is peace, for cricket, like all sports, is an act of peace.

Cricket in Afghanistan became the game of hope. This odd and rather parochial sport, invented in England and adopted by Britain's colonies, expressed a belief that the series of horrors and atrocities perpetrated by Americans, Russians, Talibs and jihadis could at last be consigned to memory: with future conflicts controlled by the Laws of Cricket rather than the flight of Black Hawk helicopters.

These ambitions kept Afghanistan climbing. In 2008 they were in division five of the World Cricket League: material for an occasional colour piece relishing the mad incongruity of it all. As the national team began to play at a higher level, they showed the usual symptoms of a team playing beyond its depth: panicky run-outs, lack of fitness and a tendency for the bowlers to lose heart when taking punishment.

Spirited but naïve: that was Afghanistan. A jolly good thing, though not one to be taken too seriously. But the forces that drive Afghanistan cricket are as strong as they are mysterious: and so they moved beyond hit and hope. The role of colourful underdog - one they are better suited than any to fulfil - is not the one they actually want.

Ireland are one of the leading Associate nations - that is to say, those just below the ten Test match nations. Afghanistan only reached that level in 2013. In January, Afghanistan beat Ireland by 71 runs. They batted pretty well, with Najibullah Zadran hitting 83 off 50 balls, but that wasn't the real point of the match.

That it came with a tight and disciplined performance in the field: bowling as a unit, with purposed professionalism, throttling the Irish response. That's why they won. They go into the World Cup ranked 11 in the world: the highest of the Associate members.

This status has given them money to invest in the game. There is an academy, and facilities for indoor training in Kabul. They are coached by the New Zealander Andy Moles (he used to play for Warwickshire) and he has done a fine job in making the transition - one of attitude rather than income - from amateurism to professionalism.

Their first game in the tournament is against Bangladesh on Wednesday, and it's easily the biggest game they have ever played. Partly this is because it's a World Cup, which dwarfs anything they've done so far, but it's also because this is a game they must win if they are to pull off yet another unlikely feat and qualify for the quarter-finals.

That's an impossibly distant prospect: yet if you are used to playing and training to the sound of occasional gunshots, you have a different view of impossible to the rest of us. If Afghanistan are to qualify, they must beat Bangladesh and Scotland and one of Australia, New Zealand, Sri Lanka or England: so it's not something you'd bet the house on. Though you might stake a fiver for the devilment of it.

Train on. That's an expression from racing: a horse can be pretty useful as a two-year-old but the question is always: will he train on? Will he move from promise to fulfilment? Will he come into his full strength as a real achiever? Or will he be one of the many who fail to make the next step?

Afghanistan's first opponents, Bangladesh, are an awful warning about failure to train on. They were given Test match status and have consistently failed to justify it: a great wave of ambition that broke and rolled back. In Afghanistan, the politics and politicians that gather round every successful national venture will get in the way, and the convoluted politics of the ICC and the world will make everything harder than it needs to be.

But Afghanistani cricketers believe there is more to come: that the pace of development can be sustained and made permanent. They believe that Test match status is not beyond their reach, and are desperate to make their case in the best way possible: out on the field of play.

Win, lose or draw Afghanistan are already the team of the World Cup. That's because the staggering achievement in just getting here is not enough. Not in their minds.