Afghanistan opening bowler Dawlat Ahmadzai, 25, speaks of his epic journey from war-torn Afghanistan to the ICC WorldTwenty20.
"Some players used to walk one or two hours across mountains at night just to play cricket."
I wasn’t born in a hospital. My father told me that when Russia came to Afghanistan, two or three years later I was born in Pakistan in the refugee camp.
I saw Pakistani boys playing cricket and that time I heard that cricket takes a very long time to play. But still I was interested.They used to play cricket outside the camps and inside we were playing volleyball. The refugee camp I was in was very big. It was called Swabi and had a hundred thousand homes in it. I remember seeing Imran Khan for the first time on TV when Pakistan won the World Cup and they were all celebrating. After that my brother made a bat and we started playing cricket.
We were always hearing about the war and listening to the radio and they were discussing about the mujahideen (freedom fighters) and how they captured certain areas and a lot of people were killed everyday. In our province, Logar, all the elder people were talking about that area and how many people died there and how all the trees were burned. It was very painful to hear.
The Russians completely destroyed our homes. If we had stayed there, then we too would’ve died surely.
We had to walk four or five kilometres to get to school outside the camp. It wasn’t like we were behind fences like in prison or anything and every morning we’d get milk and food.
Actually we are a very big family. We are from a tribe called Namdhari and it consists of around 4000 people. We live together in one area and in Afghanistan we have huge lands and a village and also in Pakistan we lived together and worked.
There were different tribes from all over who came together in the refugee camps. We were all living in tents and after some time we made rooms and walls by using the mud. Yes, the winters were cold. We used to burn wood to keep ourselves warm. In summer, we used to go to school in the morning and that time it was OK but in the afternoons it would get very, very hot.
When I was young my father and uncles used to ask me what I wanted to become. At times I used to say I wanted to become a good doctor at first but I had no idea I would become a cricketer.Right from the start I was always a bowler. From outside the camp, boys came from Peshawar and played with us and I used to join them. We played with a rubber ball. There weren’t many other sports other than volleyball. We also used to have something like shot-put which we called ‘heavy rock’.
My elder brother Hazratul brought a TV from Peshawar to my village. It was the first TV in the entire village at that time but some people weren’t happy about this. They said things like we were not supposed to watch TV. When I watched cricket on TV, nothing else mattered.
In 1996, when Sri Lanka won the World Cup, we came to Peshawar. It was filled with people playing cricket and at that time there was a famous cricket team called Nazrat cricket team. They were winning all the tournaments in different areas. Firstly they told me to just learn cricket when I was with them and after six months I became a fast bowler in their team. We won a lot of tournaments.I really liked Waqar Younis. I really like his bowling action and actually learnt a lot from him. It is a pretty good feeling to see him watching me play in the World Cup (as Afghanistan were playing India Pakistan and their coach Waqar Younis were at the ground preparing for their match against Bangladesh).
In 2001 I was a teacher at a computer course. The course was run by the cousin of Allah Dad Noori and he came to the course and he was discussing Afghanistan cricket with his cousin. That is when I told him I too was a cricketer. The ICC and ACC wanted a letter from the new Afghanistan government (following liberation from Russia and the end of civil war) and I said I could help as I knew good English. So I went with him to Kabul. Just before we decided to go to Kabul, he had announced the trials for the Afghanistan team in Peshawar. A lot of people came there and he selected 25 players. After that we went to Kabul and Allah Dad Noori and Daulat Jaji who was a selector at that time, told me that I was a good bowler.
The players then were more or less the same as now. Karim was always trying to hit the ball and always thinking about big sixes and Raees was also a big hitter back then.
Many times they hit me for 6, many times I got them out. Then we decided to make a tournament in Kabul. I had done a lot of work in the ground. A lot of players came from different provinces. Logar, my team, lost the final of that tournament and the province of Parwan won the tournament.
At that time we had no idea Afghanistan could play international cricket When Allah Dad Noori told us that we have a tour to Pakistan playing a Grade 2 cricket tournament there were 26 boys and our coach was Naeem Ahmed. I asked him ‘what do you think our future is in cricket?’. He told me if you have a future in cricket, it will bring you to almost every country and he said to respect cricket, everything in it, from shoes to helmet. And to eat less at lunch! He also said you can play in the World Cup and ODIs if you worked hard. The team never thought of it that way, that people would see us on TV. We just played cricket. We respect his words very much now and understand what he was saying.
In 2001 we were still crossing over from Kabul to Peshawar to play cricket. We were still not with the ICC or ACC. We used to join different clubs and play for them. I joined Dev Sports and Malik Sports clubs. They were really nice clubs and the owner of Malik Sports had a good relation with Afghanistan cricketers and Karim, Nawroz and I played for him and Malik is one of the clubs that won the Pakistan club championships. In 2003 we got membership from the ACC and in 2004 we went to Malaysia for the first ACC Trophy. The boys were inexperienced there but we learnt a lot from that tournament.
Crossing the border was always interesting. One time Raees had to be a bus-conductor in order to get across, another time, it was so late at night, there were no buses and we traveled across the border with some sheep in a truck. The guards at Turkham were always aggressive and suspicious and getting across was never pleasant but it made us more determined to do well in the cricket once we got across.
The proudest achievement is all our success over the years. From Division 5, Division 4, Division 3 to getting ODI status in Division 1 and qualifying for the T20 World Cup.
There is a lot of mental toughness in everyone. Some players used to walk one or two hours across mountains with cricket gear on their backs at night just to play cricket. We just had a good feeling about being good cricketers. We would’ve never guessed we’d be playing in a World Cup, we just play for Afghanistan.
Now there is a lot of talent and we have got exposure to international cricket. Now we can say we can play against big teams. We just have to keep playing well and in the future we will surely win more games.
After the current players retire, they will start coaching and they can scout new talent. We also have a good Under-19 team and from the junior teams we can pick new players for the senior squad. If they can create good junior teams, then it will be good.
People tell me that I can do more work for Afghanistan cricket. Even I think I can help develop cricket because I know the conditions and I can also build a good foundation for cricket. I will also work hard to help improve the game. I do have some ideas. Afghanistan can be divided into four zones and each zone should have Under-15, Under-16 and Under-19 teams and also a senior team. Then we can make tournaments between the zones and also within the zones themselves. If this is done, we can create strong junior teams and the future of Afghanistan cricket will be bright. We can also spread cricket in this way and start building grounds as well.
We need a financial policy, a marketing policy and a development policy. There is USAID who can spend US$100 million on developing sport in Afghanistan. The Governor of Loghar is very well known to me and my family has land almost as big as Barbados in Afghanistan some of which we can use for cricket. Every child and parent is now pro-cricket.
I’ve played international cricket against teams like India, travelled the world playing for Afghanistan so I am very happy. Now I would like to see Afghanistan do well as an ODI nation.Nothing is too tough.