An evidently tense, physically unassuming but determined-looking player, also from Afghanistan, drove his local cricket club to victory in Melbourne on my recent first umpiring gig in my new country.
It was a nail-biting 45-over game down to the last ball, played under typical Melbourne conditions at the end of summer: glimpses of sunshine between constant mild showers.
“This bloke looks too tiny for these shots”, remarked the square-leg fielder of the opposing side after a couple of sixes from the Afghan batting in the lower-middle order went flying out of the ground.
He wasn’t wrong. The courage, timing and the hand-and-eye coordination displayed by this batter against a formidable bowling attack was indeed noteworthy, as he was playing his first season in an alien country.
As we were preparing to resume the game after a rain-inflicted delay, I got a chance to chat with my countryman to find out that like me, he came to Australia as a refugee just over a year ago when the Taliban took over Afghanistan.
“I used to live in Kabul. What about you?” he asked me without hiding his pleasant surprise at seeing a fellow Afghan supervising a club cricket match thousands of miles away from their native land. He was getting along well with everyone and his teammates were welcoming and supportive.
The entire domestic cricket scene in Australia has been buzzing this season with a new cohort of energetic players from Afghanistan.
As we headed back on to the ground, I saw him holding the shiny Kookaburra ball to lead the bowling attack. He did pretty well with his fast, swinging deliveries claiming a couple of early wickets before he tired after a few overs.
I was sure things weren’t easy for him off the field – as, like me, he must have been on an agonising wait for a family visa. But, the Saturday cricket match was a lovely escape for both of us and so many more Afghans embracing the “gentlemen’s game” on a new level.
As a club cricketer myself, I had skipped most of this season’s action for a weekend job to support my family back home. The daily allowance for umpiring wasn’t a bad bargain, especially after this action-packed game.
The team batting second fought valiantly until the last ball.
The Afghan player stole the show by uprooting a couple of last wickets in his second spell to seal victory for his side. At the end, there were hand-shakes all around to put an end to the hard-fought contest.
On my long way back home, I was gripped by thoughts about the future for us newly arrived refugees in modern Australia, while comparing it to our predecessors who came here centuries ago – the Afghan cameleers.
Those courageous men with camels faced daunting tasks in outback Australia back in those days, but remained subject to inhuman immigration restrictions, such as not being allowed to travel interstate for work, being forbidden from re-entering Australia if they left and not being allowed to hold a mining rights on the goldfields.
The Labor government granting permanent residency to some refugees on temporary visas came to my mind as good news – but that pleasant thought didn’t last long, as I remembered that refugees were made to wait in limbo for more than a decade. This does not really seem like a welcoming gesture to someone like me, who has immediate family members still stranded in Afghanistan after the turmoil in August 2021.
I know dozens of new Australians with complete sets of proper documents, working in the community and paying taxes, who are made to wait and wait to see their dear ones.
Why can’t the Australian government be as welcoming and supportive to refugees as the Melbourne cricket clubs celebrating success and diversity together?
• Shadi Khan Saif is an Afghan journalist based in Melbourne
