Sport Weekly: Afghanistan lights up the Cricket World Cup | ICC Cricket World Cup Information

International Courant

Al Jazeera talks to Afghanistan’s captain, coach and ex-bowling coach about an unimaginable World Cup marketing campaign.

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Afghanistan wants an enormous win over South Africa on Friday to have an opportunity of qualifying for the semi-finals of the Cricket World Cup. However to even get entangled at this stage is outstanding.

Earlier than this match, Afghanistan recorded its solely 50-over World Cup win towards Scotland in 2015.

However in India they’ve overwhelmed former champions England, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, in addition to crushed the Netherlands, and got here agonizingly near beating five-time winners Australia on Tuesday – solely thwarted by Glenn Maxwell’s astonishing 201, which some are praising because the “largest blow” in one-day worldwide historical past.

In an unique interview this week, Captain Hashmatullah Shahidi advised Al Jazeera how Afghanistan has discovered the arrogance to humiliate a few of the world’s largest events, and disputed using the phrase “appalled” for his or her victories.

“I nonetheless do not consider we’ve got brought on any unrest,” he stated.

“A upset is one thing if you win the final ball or one thing like that. As a crew we’re adequate to beat any opponent; we’ve got the identical caliber and are on the identical degree as the opposite groups. In the event that they take us frivolously, they’ll absolutely style defeat.”

The victories in Afghanistan have given individuals uncommon alternatives for public celebration within the war-torn, Taliban-controlled nation.

The crew has an uneasy relationship with the federal government; it nonetheless performs beneath the inexperienced, black and purple nationwide flag banned by the Taliban and is predicated overseas, however Shahidi says the Taliban helps the crew.

However politicians have saved an eye fixed on their marketing campaign, particularly within the match towards Australia, the place the cricket physique has canceled bilateral matches between the boys’s sides as a result of Taliban authorities’s ladies’s coverage.

The Taliban have banned ladies from taking part in sports activities, ending the rising push to develop ladies’s cricket within the nation.

The Worldwide Cricket Council (ICC) says they’re making an attempt to chart a path to advertise Afghan ladies’s cricket with out punishing the boys’s crew. However there are nonetheless no clear targets or timelines for re-establishing a ladies’s cricket programme.

In the meantime, Umar Gul, a retired Pakistani quick bowler and former Afghanistan bowling coach, says the ICC also needs to put money into home Afghan males’s cricket to construct on the crew’s success and guarantee it doesn’t merely fade away.

“They do not have many services at dwelling,” Gul advised Al Jazeera this week.

“They do not have home construction. Lately, they simply began the first-class season, however they solely have 4 groups. They should appropriate their home construction and broaden the groups in order that they’ve the potential to enhance at worldwide degree.”

Afghanistan’s coach, former England batsman Jonathan Trott, advised Al Jazeera he didn’t need to touch upon the politics surrounding the game, however stated: “Our job is to be good ambassadors for the sport and for the nation”.

“And our gamers actually deliver plenty of smiles to lots of people in Afghanistan and around the globe, and right here in India the assist for Afghanistan is nice.”

Elsewhere this week:

Sport Weekly: Afghanistan lights up the Cricket World Cup | ICC Cricket World Cup Information

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