Saturday, January 22, 2011

Afghanistan national women’s cricket team all set to take on the Asian women in Twenty20

  • Afghanistan national women’s cricket team all set to take on the Asian women in Twenty20
Afghanistan national women’s cricket team all set to take on the Asian women in Twenty20
The Afghan Women’s cricket team has vowed to give a tough time to the rest of the teams from Asia when they meet in a Twenty20 tournament, set to begin in Kuwait from February.
The team is still going through its initial phase of formulation and the Afghan Cricket Board (ACB) hopes that the team will be ready by the end of this month, before departing for Kuwait.
This is the first time in 30 years that a women’s team from the war-ravaged country will feature in any event. Under the rule of the Taliban, women were forbidden to take part in any sport. The Taliban had also banned men from playing many sports that included cricket as well.
Even after the ouster of the Taliban in an invasion led by the United States of America (USA) in 2001, women still face difficulty in going out of their homes to participate in sporting events. Under the new regime of Hamid Karzai, women have been allowed to practice in locations which have been banned for men.
The national women’s team currently practices in a ground which is surrounded by high walls with barbed wires at the top so that men would not be able to enter the facility. Here, the Afghan girls freely practice without worrying about men staring at them.
However, due to the traditional customs of the country, many families don’t permit their women to go out of their houses and many women choose to stay indoors by their own will.
Cricket has been gaining interest in Afghanistan over the past years. The men’s cricket team has recently tasted feats of glory by winning the ICC Intercontinental Cup in December, 2010 and defeating favourites Pakistan in the semifinal of the Asian games in China.
Women, on the other hand, still have to prove their mettle and the T20 tournament in Kuwait seems like a perfect opportunity for them to show the world what they’ve got.
The team is led by 22-year-old Diana Barakzai, who happens to be a fast-bowler. The skipper has high hopes from her team and believes that the girls are in a better shape than when they first joined the national team. “In the past they didn’t know bat from ball but now they’re good. They have families with them and they support them,” she said.
ACB’s development manager for women’s cricket, Mohammad Naeem, hopes to raise the standard of the team and build them into an outfit to reckon with. Talking to the media, he said, “I want all our sporting teams to be champions, I want all of them to have achievements for the poor Afghan nation, which has suffered more than 30 years of war.”
Cricket in Afghanistan came from the neighbouring Pakistan when many refugees returned home after the end of Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Later, after the Taliban, the Afghan government hired the services of former cricketers from Pakistan to lift the standard of the game. Currently, Pakistan’s former wicketkeeper/captain Rashid Latif is the head coach of the men’s team.

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