Kabul Cricket

On the road out to the Qargha Lake and the Royal Kabul Golf Course (which was closed - perhaps because of the lastest attack but that is mere speculation) we came upon a group of guys playing cricket on a hardened peice of dirt next to the side of the road. I would have called it a field but nothing was growing there at all. But the standard of cricket was pretty amazing. They played with a tapped tennis ball and a bat - but on the hardened earth they had painted a pitch and two cordons - the inner circle and the boundary. Their talk was all of runs per over to win, economy rates and batting averages - all calculated in Mohammed's exercise book that he was also using to score. He and his friend Rasul told me that almost all the boys here had grown up in Pakistan - Peshawar, Karachi and other cities. Their families had left during hostilities in Afghanistan in the 80's and 90's. Their English was good but their standard of cricket was probably better. Some of the boys wore Pakistani one day outfits others the local shalwar kameez (a long flowing shirt worn over quite baggy pants). Today was the semi-final of their Kabul competition. Teams from different parts of Kabul had formed in the last two years and played a number of games throughout the summer culminating in a final series in September - before the weather in Kabul started to turn cold. I had brought a number of rubber stiched plastic balls from Australia and told them I would return the next day to give to the boys.