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Afghanistan’s cricket team have emerged as the underdog success story of the Cricket World Cup in India, with historic victories that have enthralled fans and catapulted the crisis-hit nation into the sport’s elite.
The men’s team, a newcomer to high-level cricket, has beaten teams including current world champions England and Afghanistan’s arch-rival Pakistan during the six-week tournament that started last month. They play South Africa in Ahmedabad on Friday with a hope of qualifying for the semi-finals for the first time.
Afghanistan’s cricketing rise over the past decade has been among the most unexpected stories in global sport, as a country racked by war — and with little cricketing history — became a formidable on-field force.
“It’s unique in that they’ve achieved so much against the odds. And deservedly so,” said Simon Hughes, a former cricket player-turned-commentator. “It’s fantastic for the game to have a team like this playing so well.”
To many fans, the Afghan team represents an open, inclusive vision of the country that was largely erased when the Taliban seized control in 2021 and set about creating one of the world’s most repressive regimes.
The Taliban has embraced the sport since its return to power, but the team continues to play under the black, red and green national flag of the toppled government. Stars such as captain Rashid Khan have called on the country’s rulers to rescind their ban on education for girls and many players are based overseas.
The Afghanistan Cricket Board nonetheless answers to the Taliban, in a tense compromise with global cricketing authorities.
Women are no longer allowed to play cricket in the country, with the national women’s team disbanded and its players forced to flee abroad. Australia, which on Tuesday narrowly defeated Afghanistan, earlier this year cancelled an individual series against the men’s side in protest against the Taliban’s repression of women’s rights.
At home, the team’s World Cup successes have been welcomed in a country struggling with multiple crises. US and international sanctions imposed since the Taliban took over have devastated the economy, leading to a surge in poverty and forcing millions of people into hunger.
Afghanistan was also last month struck by several powerful earthquakes that aid groups have said killed roughly 1,000 people. The UN Development Programme said Afghanistan was now among “the poorest two or three countries in the world”.
“For about four decades we’ve been suffering from wars,” said Umar, a 33-year-old former cricketer who lives in Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan.
“Without cricket we didn’t have any other way of happiness,” said Umar, who preferred to be identified by a single name. “It means a lot for us.”
The hardline Islamist Taliban cracked down on sports when it first ruled the country in the 1990s, before being ousted in a US-backed invasion in 2001.
Cricket took hold in Afghanistan thanks to its popularity among refugees in Pakistan, who brought the sport back with them. Afghanistan joined the International Cricket Council in 2001 and achieved full member status in 2017.
Players such as Khan and Mujeeb Ur Rahman have since become international stars, honing their skills by regularly playing in top domestic tournaments such as the Indian Premier League.
“They have none of the framework that has helped cricket grow in other countries,” said Sharda Ugra, a sports writer based in India. “They’ve been Afghanistan’s feel-good story over all these years.”
But the sport continued to face resistance from violent extremists. A bomb attack on a 2018 cricket tournament in Jalalabad that Umar helped to organise killed eight people.
Despite the giant-killing victories, Afghanistan is sixth out of 10 in the tournament rankings and faces a tricky path to the semi-finals.
The team on Tuesday suffered a narrow defeat to Australia, which had been in trouble until batsman Glenn Maxwell scored 201 runs.
To stay in the competition, Afghanistan needs not only to defeat South Africa on Friday but for New Zealand and Pakistan to slip up in their next matches.
Whether or not it makes it to the semi-finals, Afghanistan’s performance has marked an extraordinary improvement on the previous 2019 World Cup, when it lost all nine of its matches. With this year’s tournament helping showcase a new generation of players, fans hope the nation can keep its newfound place in cricket’s upper echelons.
“Even if this time we don’t get what we want, next time we’ll try for the mega-title,” said Umar, adding he believed the team was getting stronger. “They’ll fight to the end.”
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