Cricket
Cricket became the most popular sport in Afghanistan in the last decade. The Afghanistan national cricket team, which was formed in 2001, has held matches against all other international cricket teams. The Afghans rapidly rose through the World Cricket League since early 2008. It participated in the 2009 ICC World Cup Qualifier, 2010 ICC World Cricket League Division One, and 2010 ICC World Twenty20 where they played India and South Africa. Afghanistan won the ACC Twenty20 Cup in 2007, 2009, 2011 and 2013. It played in the 2012 ICC Under-19 Cricket World Cup. They have also participated in the 2012 ICC World Twenty20 in Sri Lanka. Afghanistan recently played ODI against Pakistan which was their first time against full members.
In the national level, cricket matches are played between provinces, mainly between the south and eastern provinces of the country. According to locals, cricket has helped Afghanistan in bringing unity.
The Afghanistan national women's cricket team was formed in 2010.
Read more about this topic: Sport In Afghanistan
Famous quotes containing the word cricket:
“All cries are thin and terse;
The field has droned the summer’s final mass;
A cricket like a dwindled hearse
Crawls from the dry grass.”
—Richard Wilbur (b. 1921)
“The thing that struck me forcefully was the feeling of great age about the place. Standing on that old parade ground, which is now a cricket field, I could feel the dead generations crowding me. Here was the oldest settlement of freedmen in the Western world, no doubt. Men who had thrown off the bands of slavery by their own courage and ingenuity. The courage and daring of the Maroons strike like a purple beam across the history of Jamaica.”
—Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960)