An ode to the Afghanistan cricket team
Today India will be playing against Afghanistan in the 2018 Asian Cup Tournament to reach the finals as an invincible team that reached there undefeated. The Afghanistan Cricket Team, on the other hand, will be playing for their honor.
The Afghanistan cricket team is not just any other sports team; not for their country at least. For Afghanistan, The Afghanistan cricket team is a beacon of hope. A hope that they too can move out of the difficult times that they faced as a nation under Taliban and later under various other a forces, difficult times that pushed them back when the world was moving forward. The Afghanistan cricket team gives its nation hope that they too are now moving in the right direction and can leave a mark on the world.
This team played its first one day match against Scotland in 2009 and acquired the test status as late as 2017. This did not however, stop the Afghanistan cricket team from putting up a performance that was not only classified as “good cricket” but also a performance that no one ever expects out of a cricket team so new to the international level of the game.
Pakistan and Bangladesh are two big names when it comes to the cricket playing nations. Afghanistan gave both nations a tough fight that left experts stunned at the journey that the team has undertaken in such a short time. Bangladesh somehow managed to defeat Afghanistan in a very close match just a margin of three runs; a victory that certainly cannot be attributed to a weak opponent. The closeness of this victory made the world sit up and notice Afghanistan.
The match that however won the hearts of the Afghanis was the one that their country played against Sri Lanka. And Won. The Afghanistan Cricket Team had given the Sri Lankans, a formidable team, a target of two fifty. The Sri Lankan batting order was all out at one fifty eight. It was a match that told the world loud and clear that a new name is here in the cricket world.
The Afghanistan Cricket Team has arrived and its years of absence from the international scene and the bad times that the nation has faced will not hold it back any longer.
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