This will be one of the proudest moments of my life

Hamid Hassan

The team is in high spirits ahead of our opening match of the World Twenty20.

It will be one of the proudest moments of my life when I stand on the field and listen to the national anthem being played before the match. There may even be a few tears when I am standing with my hand on the chest listening to the music. We actually heard the team practicing the national anthems after we were training and when they finished playing the Afghanistan anthem we all stood and applauded.

I am proud of my team and I know how lucky I am to have the chance to represent my country. We are ambassadors for our nation and to have the chance to play in a world event for Afghanistan against other famous cricket countries is amazing.

It is very exciting that people in Afghanistan will have the chance to watch the game on television – it will be the first live match that I have ever played in. I am really looking forward to the fact that all my friends and family will finally have a chance to watch us in action.

My parents sent me a message today saying that they can’t wait for the game tomorrow. They will be watching the match at home – I think the streets will be very quiet on Saturday night in Afghanistan as everybody will be following the game on television or radio.

It will be a great honour to be on the same pitch as the likes of Dhoni and Yuvraj Singh. There is no Indian player I am particularly looking forward to bowling against but they are all great players. I will just be doing my best to try and bowl some dot balls and try and take some wickets.

I think it is a big advantage that they don’t know anything about us, while obviously we know lots about them as we have watched them all on television a million times and we know how they are going to play.

After training this morning, we had time just to relax this afternoon. My first impressions of St Lucia are that it is an extremely beautiful place and the ground is very nice as well. There won’t be much time for being a tourist as we are here to focus on the cricket and do as well as we can.

In the morning we will have to get up very early, as the game starts at 9.30am, so after praying and breakfast, we will head to the ground. I can’t wait for the action to begin!