'They ask us about the war all the time'

Spending a day with the Afghanistan cricket team can be an unusual experience, as Andy Bull found out. Read his account of the encounter in the Guardian.

I would have liked to talk to them about how batsman Raees Ahmadzai was carried across the border to Pakistan in the 1980s as his family fled from the Soviet invasion. About how he and the others learned to play cricket in a refugee camp using balls made out of old torn up shirts and stumps made out of shoes. What I ended up discussing with the team's captain, Nowroz Mangal, was whether or not Pizza Hut's Chicken Supreme was Halal. We decided probably not. Margheritas and Sprite all round then.

Afghanistan's World Twenty20 opening encounter against India will pit a team of fans against the heroes they idolise. G.S. Vivek reports in the Indian Express.

Opener Karim Sadiq’s mates call him ‘Kabul ka Sehwag’ for his big hitting, and it is obvious who Sadiq’s cricketing hero is. “In January 2004, the Afghanistan Under-19 team toured India, and in a game at Mohali I scored a century, hitting six sixes. The Indian boys started calling me ‘Kabul ka Sehwag’, and the name stuck,” he grins. “I have videos of all Sehwag’s knocks in my laptop.”

Sadiq is disappointed he won’t meet his idol in the Caribbean - the Indian star having had to drop out due to injury. “I had planned to ask him for an autographed T-shirt. I have heard Gautam (Gambhir) is his close friend, maybe I will ask him to arrange a meeting with Sehwag,” he says.