Driving a manual car requires determining the right balance between the clutch and gas pedal. Let go of the clutch too quickly and find the engine bogging down and halting. Release it too slowly to the point you are riding on it and it will wear out before time. The Afghanistan cricket team has been trying to find this balance for quite some time now. In the previous T20 World Cup, a couple of abandoned games and a close defeat against Australia sent them home before they could release the clutch pedal fully. In the ODI World Cup last year, they depressed the pedal too quickly getting the car to get a jerk and die down soon.
It’s not easy being surrounded by the biggest bullies in cricket and having a nation that is just as crazy (if not more) about the game as the richest cricketing nation while your cricketers live off franchise leagues around the world. It is also not easy being accused of the oppression you are living through. Facing boycotts for the very problems you are trying hard to eliminate. It is easier for the big boys to think they have solved the problem by avoiding facing it. Life is not that bad when you are privileged enough to be moral but it reveals its ugly side when even in the moments of your triumphs, you are reminded, that you are not doing enough.
Afghanistan Cricket Team; definitely not flukes
But like a cliche fairytale, everything has worked out for Afghanistan in the end. They now know at what speed the clutch and gas pedal need to be released and pressed. They know this because they have managed to get the vehicle started and take them to the destination they had been eyeing for years but each time had been reminded that they are not worthy of it.
It all started with a win over New Zealand but according to Rashid Khan, the team’s captain and the first one to escape the cave facing the wall with shadows, it was the belief of Brain Lara that steered them to shift the paradigm. But what makes their journey more interesting is that the team did not board the semi-final train unscathed. They had their ups and downs but they made sure to tackle every down with a high up.
Against West Indies and India, they showed glimpses of their struggling phase as a team, making it look like they are but another case of a low-ranked team who somehow fluked their way to Super Eights only to get a rejection to proceed any further. Along with fulfilling the dream of reaching the semis, they now had to smash a new batch of preconceptions. And smashed they did because by now they have learned every way of doing that.
Bowling attack which is more than just good old Rashid Khan
One of these hunches about them was Rashid Khan carrying the whole bowling attack on his shoulders. While there is no denying that no one in their team (or in the world for that matter) is a better bowler than Rashid especially in T20Is, Afghanistan has nurtured more bowlers while the world was ignorantly blinded by their notions about them. It’s sheer sacrilegious if anyone still thinks there is no one worthy of being called a good bowler in the Afghanistan cricket team besides their skipper.
Fazalhaq Farooqi. He is not only the leading wicket-taker so far, but his bargain of 9.31 runs per wicket is the best among the bowlers who have played at least 5 matches in this World Cup.
Gulbadin Naib made his T20 debut when Afghanistan was playing in T20 World Cup qualifiers in 2012. The team managed to make it to the finals. 12 years on from that match, he was dancing at Arnos Vale Ground with his team as the news broke out of them making it to the semi-finals. Naib was not a side character in this journey, in fact, if we keep his acting finesse in mind he was more than a main character. Acting was not the only thing he chipped in. He got rid of the orchestrator of the Afghan nightmares since that wretched game in Mumbai, Glenn Maxwell as well as three other batters.
Carrying the whole batting lineup
A below-par middle order does not haunt your dreams as much when the openers get done half the batting job. To back this claim, Ibrahim Zadran and Rahmanullah Gurbaz’s stats can be seen, who have been the biggest relief for the Afghanistan team this edition. This makes one wonder if, with a half-functioning batting team, their bowling lineup has done so well, what hell would have gone break if they had a slightly decent middle order?
Many Afghan players who will be playing in the semi-final on Wednesday might not be here for the next edition. But that would not change anything. Especially now that they have grabbed the eyeballs of the world as well as reinvigorated the passion in the hearts of fans back home, many more Rashid Khans and Mohammad Nabis will put on that blue jersey and amaze the world with their finesse. Being in a continent with teams like India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka, Afghanistan no longer belongs to the second class.
They have managed to turn players with raw talent and passion into cricketers who have become the darlings of the game, especially in the shortest format. Now is the time for these dispersed match winners to assemble and reach unprecedented heights for their country. ICC might not have made Americans go gaga over cricket in this month-long event, but Afghanistan has definitely shown people why this dying game still has millions of fans.
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