Cricket is on the rise and rise in Afghanistan - and Germany

Cricket is on the rise and rise in Afghanistan and Germany and both countries face challenges in gaining funding to support the ever-growing demand for a good game of cricket. And the demand is from the youth who see it as their hope for a better future.

Logar provincial officials in Afghanistan announced that work has started on a new cricket field in Pul-e-Alam, the provincial capital. The Afghanistan Cricket Board (ACB), based in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, said that 15 acres have been set aside for the cricket field, which will take two years to complete. India is funding the project.

The provincial governor, Mohammad Alim Fedayee said the work started on Sunday 1 January 2017. ‘I am very happy that today construction of a standard cricket ground started in Logar. This will help to encourage youths to play cricket.’ He had hopes that the youth who start playing cricket today will become members of the international cricket team in the future.

ACB’s chair, Shukrullah Atif Mashal, said he had inspected Paktia Province’s new cricket field and found it to be sub-standard. He said he would check the contractual agreement and try to resolve the issue. The Paktia provincial governor, Zalmai Wesa, said he was hopeful that the issues of the stadium will be resolved because the cricket field is an international cricket stadium. ‘We are also asking the ACB to look into creating cricket academies in the province.’ Paktia stadium was built on 35 acres of land and the cost of construction came from the ACB’s development budget.

The Ghazi Amanullah Khan International Cricket Stadium in Nangahar Province was the first international standard cricket stadium in Afghanistan. Construction, with a 14,000 seat capacity, began in March 2010 on 30 acres of land donated by the developer of the town. The Kabul National Cricket Stadium was the second international standard cricket ground. The government of Germany aided the construction of a stadium in Khost Province in eastern Afghanistan.

Cricket has been Afghanistan’s most popular sport since 2001. The Afghan national cricket team was formed 15 years ago in 2001, and it played its first official match in 2004 after registering with the International Cricket Council (ICC), the governing body for cricket around the world. Afghanistan won the international Twenty20 Cup in 2007, 2009, 2011, and 2013. The international team also played in the 2015 ICC Cricket World Cup.

Cricket has gone from strength to strength in Afghanistan, proving to be an incentive for youth, and a ‘unifying force in a divided nation’ said ACB chief executive Shafiq Stanikzai. He added that cricket has ‘played a role in the prosperity and stability of the country. I don't think any other sport in any other part of the world has played such a role and this is a magical journey.’

One reason for cricket’s rise was the return, after the overthrow of the Taliban, of refugees from Pakistan – a great cricketing nation. Youth have told the ACB officials that cricket enables them to gain friendships and is a ‘beacon of hope’ for the future.

In Germany, the German Cricket Board (GCB) estimated that there were 5,000 Afghan refugees playing for regular clubs out of a total of 15,000 people who play club cricket (an increase from 2,000 in 2012). Cricket has never been a major sport in Germany, but the number of cricket teams in Germany has risen from 80 to 218 since 2012, and the number of youth cricket teams has risen from 0 to 50 since 2012. ‘It is a sport we need,’ said Niamatullah, a refugee in Bremen, Germany. Niamatullah’s intention in the future, once he has a German passport, is to play in the national team in the ICC competition.

In the past two years, 20 new cricket grounds – of varying qualtiy – have been found in Germany through clubs and local officials. To get by, the GCB has found a German supplier of coconut mats that, when laid out on wooden boards, are serviceable to play on. Charities contribute equipment. Chief executive of the GCB Brian Mantle said he is ‘completely overwhelmed’ getting 30 applications to form new clubs around the country, many from towns with refugees.

Mantle, from England, is the German Cricket Board’s only permanent member of staff because cricket is such a small sport in Germany. He is responsible for everything, including finding the funding to keep up with the increasing demand for cricket. Although Germany's basic funding from the ICC increased between 2014-15 and 2015-16, the decrease in regional development funding from the ICC meant that their overall budget actually decreased slightly. Overall they get just over $200,000 a year from the ICC, which has been boosted by an emergency grant of $30,000.

‘We have no idea how big the potential is, but it is huge,’ Mantle says about the rise of cricket in Germany. Once they reach 10,000 regular participants, which should be within a year, the GCB will become eligible to receive funding from the German Olympic Committee. If cricket becomes an Olympic sport, the GCB could receive €1 million a year from the government: about four times its total current revenue, which would help to build much-needed good-quality new grounds.

As the stories of the Afghan refugees have been covered by several national newspapers, including CNN, more people in Germany have been encouraged to take up cricket. Andrew, a South African who had just heard about German cricket for the first time in 2016, now goes to training on Friday (the only day of the week for training). One-third (33%) of those playing for Under-15 teams are Germans without links to Afghanistan or any of the Test nations.

Back in Afghanistan, the ACB is hopeful that by 2019 or 2020 international cricket can be played in Afghanistan, because currently the Afghan team play all of their international games overseas. ‘We have the grounds, we have the people supporting us, but yes, we have to prove to the world that it is a safe place to play cricket,’ Stanikzai said.

http://afghanistantimes.af/how-afghanistan-is-bringing-cricket-to-germany/ Tim Wigmore is a freelance journalist and author of Second XI: Cricket in its Outposts © ESPN Sports Media.

MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of:- The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).