“I don’t know much about them, but I heard that some of their players picked up the game in Pakistan and played much of their cricket there. And they’re clearly useful.”
As well documented as Afghanistan’s rise has been, from the early days of playing cricket in the refugee camps of northern Pakistan in the 1990s through to becoming a full-member Test nation six years ago, it is still pretty remarkable to think how relatively unknown their men’s team was as recently as 2006.
Mike Gatting was the captain speaking here, perhaps feeling a little bit like Jos Buttler this past week, after the MCC side the 48-year-old was leading suffered a 171-run defeat to Afghanistan at the Police Gymkhana Ground in Mumbai. The game was added to the tour by Robin Marlar, a forward-thinking president of MCC, and for the Afghans, the Guardian reported at the time, it was “the crowning glory of their fledgling international careers”.
Well, it’s fair to say that crowning glory on Marine Drive has been surpassed a good few times since, not least by events in Delhi last Sunday. And one of the neat things about Afghanistan’s eye-catching 69-run victory at the Arun Jaitley Stadium – beyond it being a thumping, a first against England in their history, and only their second in 50-over World Cups overall – is a cricketer who featured in both games.
Mohammad Nabi was not just making up the numbers the day Gatting’s array of minor counties’ cricketers came a cropper. Aged only 21, with Afghanistan still two years from their entry on to the bottom rung of the international ladder, he was the starlet who hinted at the promise of the nation as a whole with an incendiary 116 off 44 balls featuring 13 sixes, three or four of which were apparently monstrous.
“[Nabi] was extraordinary that day,” Gatting tells the Spin. “We thought we had them at a manageable score and I think we dropped him early in his innings. But once he located the middle of the bat he hit it miles. Balls were flying on to the nearby railway tracks or hitting buildings 100 metres away. They were a very good team.”
It was enough to earn Nabi and the fast bowler Hamid Hassan a season among the MCC young cricketers that year – a first overseas spell in what became a career on the road. Sharing a poky room in a hostel in Hampstead, they lived on fish and chips, trained in international facilities, bowled to England players in the nets and experienced matches against county opposition. “One big adventure” is how Nabi has since described that summer.
Only the stone-hearted can begrudge the leg up English cricket gave a player such as Nabi, even if this was tested last Sunday. Now a seasoned pro at 38, veteran of all the main franchise leagues, he was part of a three-man spin phalanx that shared eight of the 10 English wickets to fall. Pristine figures of two for 16 from six overs started with the prized pelt of the in-form Dawid Malan and then helping to snuff out a possible lower order fightback by removing Sam Curran.
Both dismissals were beautiful pieces of bowling from the most orthodox of the trio. While Rashid Khan purveys fizzing wrist-spin and Mujeeb Ur Rahman offers a dash of mystery from the fingertips, Nabi is a classical off-spinner – the kind that many believed would become extinct in the big-hitting era of Twenty20. Flight and some succulent dip were the undoing of Malan and Curran, the former chipping to cover and the latter poking to slip.
And as Afghanistan’s march became inevitable, a pretty cool statistic emerged beyond Nabi playing his 150th one-day international among Afghanistan’s 155. According to the Cricketer’s Nick Friend, England became the 43rd national team beaten in a cricketing life that began when, in exile, he started playing with the refugees in Peshawar. In a sport that is fundamentally a closed shop, where a star such as Joe Root, for example, has faced only 11 countries in 11 years, it underlines the journey that both he and Afghanistan have been on.
The teams? In order (and not all in ICC events it should be said): Bahrain, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Iran, Thailand, Nepal, UAE, Japan, the Bahamas, Botswana, Jersey, Fiji, Tanzania, Italy, Hong Kong, Argentina, Papua New Guinea, Cayman Islands, Oman, Denmark, Bermuda, Ireland, Scotland, the Netherlands, China, Namibia, Singapore, Canada, USA, Kenya, Pakistan, Trinidad & Tobago, Bhutan, Maldives, Barbados, Uganda, Bangladesh, Zimbabwe, West Indies, Sri Lanka and now England.
Was the most recent of these an upset? Opinions differ. Some point to the fact Afghanistan were seventh in the seedings and, having qualified directly, this was not a total jaw-dropper. Had West Indies snuck in and beaten England, for example, it would not have drawn the same response. Perhaps the best tag is simply “historic”, of which there can be little doubt (even if the Spin personally considers it a genuine shock given the disparity in resources and the fact it was the defending champions).
Sadly some of the romance here is tempered by the knowledge that Afghanistan’s previously contracted women’s cricketers remain on the outer, 22 of them living overseas since the return of the Taliban in 2021. It remains a genuinely troubling issue for the sport and the International Cricket Council, full membership of which demands both genders have established cricketing programmes – and yet seemingly not.
With the ICC sitting on its hands thus far, it may require individual countries or bodies to step in and assist the current group of cricketing exiles from Afghanistan. As the more than useful Nabi proves, a lot can be achieved with just a little help.
• This is an extract from the Guardian’s weekly cricket email, The Spin. To subscribe, just visit this page and follow the instructions.
