Afghanistan's jewel in the crown - Rashid

As was evident against Bangladesh on Monday & Tuesday, the spinner has been instrumental in taking the team to another level

- SWAROOP SWAMINATHAN

BY the time Afghanistan finished playing their first official fixtures in an Asian Cricket Council Trophy in Malaysia in 2004, there was already a buzz back home. The side, some of whom were refugees from Pakistan, gave a good account of themselves as they finished sixth in that tournament (refugees coming from Pakistan and cricket go back a long way; in 1995, Allah Dad Noori, a refugee from the country, had set up the Afghan Cricket Federation).

While the details of that competition are sketchy, Kabul was already alive with possibilities. A report in Wisden's 2004 edition said (since quoted in the book Second XI: Cricket in its Outposts): "Allah Dad Noori was playing one day in Kabul when a young man walked by carrying an AK47, watched for a while before being invited to join in," the report stated. "Afterwards, he asked if he could play next time. When he returned he was without the rifle. "Where's your AK47?" asked Noori. "Oh, I don't need that," the youth replied. "I'm playing cricket."

If Noori was one of the founding fathers of the side, there can be no doubt about the team's current rockstar. Rashid Khan. He's their icon cricketer, the lodestar writing a script that's never before written in the history of this century-old sport.