Via CorSullivan, we have the incredible tale of the Afghan cricket team which may qualify for the 2011 World Cup:

When the British marched into Afghanistan in 1838, they brought polo mallets, fox hounds and cigars. They brought imperial hubris, bone china and cases of port. But the players of the Great Game also brought a great game: cricket.

One hundred and seventy-one years later, cricket has returned here, an outpost of the world’s most civilised sport in one of the world’s most brutal places. Today, the Afghan national cricket team opens its 2009 campaign to secure a place at the Cricket World Cup in 2011, having already won two qualifying tournaments last year. That this stricken, blood-soaked country should be able to field a cricket team at all, let alone one as successful as this, is an astonishing achievement: it is a story of endurance and passion, and of the strange power of sport to transcend politics and war. [...]

If Afghanistan is a nation full of despair, its cricket team is a rare beacon of hope. The players will tell you that they feel their country has been let down on so many levels by the international community. On that green stretch of grass in Argentina today, at least, it’s Afghanistan’s chance to nudge the balance sheet. Pride is the word that the countless fans and well-wishers have used, again and again, in postings on the team’s Facebook page. Says one supporter, Ahmad: “Loins of Afghanistan, proud of you all… I have a wish, that is to show the world that we can beat you.” Or, in the words of the captain, Nowroz Mangal, “Cricket is not just a sport. It is much, much more.”

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Adnan Khan, writing on Macleans, says:

A decade ago, if anyone even mentioned Afghan cricket, they would have been the laughingstock of the cricketing community. “Afghans play buzkashi,” cricket snobs around the world might have said derisively, referring to Afghanistan’s national sport in which men on horseback battle to carry a goat carcass over an opposing team’s goal line. “Cricket is too refined a game for them.” What most people didn’t realize at the time was that Afghan refugees living in the impoverished camps of Peshawar on the Pakistani frontier were developing a love for Pakistan’s own national pastime.

Across the border in Afghanistan, the Taliban regime had banned cricket along with any other sport, including buzkashi. Only in Pakistan could Afghan cricketers express their desire to learn the game, as well as showcase their talent for it. Now, since the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001, Afghan cricketers have risen to the rank of golden boys in the cricketing world, turning heads from Malaysia to Tanzania. Their most recent triumph at the 2009 Division 3 World Cup qualifying tournament in Buenos Aires has propelled them up the world rankings to a level nearly on par with Canada’s own national team.

In the last few years, the Iraq War has grabbed all our attention. But once in a while, articles like these bring back us to what is happening in this landlocked country that has been plagued by violence in the past three decades.  The Afghans are a proud nation, but they remain divided. The influence of a national sport like cricket can help unite them in the way that the 3Cs – Cinema (Bollywood), Cricket and Congress (the Indian National Congress) helped unite the fledgling India after independence.

Qualifying for the World Cup and having their team have an extended run by beating a few giants can improve the country more than the entire NATO force. The armed forces should flood the country with TV’s that can access free satellite coverage of the cricket World Cup. Our best wishes are with these brave players from a land that is struggling to find its identity.