World Cup 2015: Minnows in sharks’ tank

At an indoor academy in Kabul, Afghani stan’s cricketers are training hard for their debut in the upcoming World Cup tournament in Australia and New Zealand next month. Shuttle runs and lifting weights help keep out the bitter chill of the Afghan winter as the players tune up for the tournament on warmer antipodean shores.

The Afghans’ opening match against Bangladesh in Canberra on February 18 will mark the culmination of a fairy-tale journey for a team born in the ashes of decades of war. Afghanistan qualified for the last two World Twenty20 tournaments in 2010 and 2012 but lost all their matches, however this will be their first time in the 50-over tournament.

“It really means so much to play in a mega event like the World Cup,” Mohammad Nabi Eisakhil, the team’s 30-year-old captain, wearing a thick jersey and winter hat inside the chilly training facility. Cricket came to Afghanistan through refugee camps in Pakistan, where countless Afghans fled the 1979 Soviet invasion of their homeland. After learning it in exile, young Afghans brought cricket back with them when the Taliban fell in 2001 and the game has gone from strength to strength ever since.

Afghanistan face a tough fight to get out of their group, which includes Test powerhouses Australia, SL, England and NZ. Only the top four in each group go through to the knockout stages. But the side are buoyant after beating Bangladesh in the Asia Cup last year and know the big-name sides will be wary of a possible giant-killing.

“We have a chance, if we play to our potential, to qualify for the quarter-finals,” said Nabi, an off-spinning all-rounder with 43 one-day internationals under his belt. “This is a game that can bring Afghanistan together and be a very good tool for peace and stability.”