ICC Cricket World Cup - Afghanistan, We Adopt You
It's with great warm and fuzziness that I'm announcing that the first adopted team of the Niche Cache ever will be Afghanistan. It shouldn't take much explaining as to why we picked Afghanistan as our Nichey Niche Team, the mere fact that they are competing in the World Cup is rather crazy in itself but for Afghanistan having much higher aspirations is the key.
There's a few teams we could have picked - Bangladesh, Zimbabwe Scotland, Ireland and the UAE, but Afghanistan are as talented as their back story is awesome. Sure, they will probably struggle to make much of an impact in the World Cup but them qualifying for this World Cup is simply a starting point.
There's also the worldly aspect of this as obviously Afghanistan has had a pretty unfortunate time of things in the past few decades. We don't dabble in politics but we love sport and we love the power of sport to bring people together, putting smiles on faces. Thanks to Afghanistan's close proximity to Pakistan and India, cricket is huge sport and is widely loved by all in Afghanistan so it wouldn't too bold a statement to say that cricket could play an important role in the future of the country.
Not to mention that Afghanistan's cricketers come from nothing, well they come from refugee camps and poverty. Yet here they are, doing something they love to not only tick off goals and dreams but to support their families. I think cricket has lacked that story line lately and it's largely non-existent in Aotearoa, Australia, England and South Africa as cricket is more a middle class sport. The stories of Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Amir, two Pakistani fast bowlers who went from bowling super fast on dirt to international cricket are what capture the hearts of sports fans, so the more of these the merrier.
And then there's the fact that a former Black Caps coach is at the forefront of the evolution of cricket in Afghanistan. Andy Moles, he basically emerged from no where to be named Black Caps coach and vanished just as quickly so I kinda feel like I owe him one.
We'll follow Afghanistan as if they are the Black Caps. Anything and everything regarding Afghanistan at this World Cup will be given love and positive vibes will be spread in the name of Afghan cricket.
In the lead up to the World Cup, Afghanistan are in the United Arab Emirates playing a few games. They've played Scotland and Ireland so far and repeat the dose by playing Scotland today, then Ireland on Saturday. Against Scotland the lads won by 8 wickets, restricting Scotland to 237 thanks to a solid effort from the bowlers with the pick of the bunch being Dawlat Zadran who finished with 3/41 off his 9 overs. They chased down Scotland's total rather easily with opener Javed Ahmadi hitting 74 off 81 and Naisr Jamal not out on 52.
Ireland then handed the Afghans a defeat, bowling them out for 180 with Javed Ahmadi's 82 the only score of note. Afghanistan couldn't stop the Irish chasing 180 down, but Ahmadi also picked up 4 wickets in the process finishing with 4/37 off his 10 overs. I like this guy already.
We'll see how they go against Scotland and Ireland over the next few days and touch base again next week.