Lance Klusener’s team will enter World T20 with ambitions due to takeover of Taliban

Andy Moles has grown up instead of holding his breath. Former Warwickshire batsman spent six years as coach and director of Afghanistan Cricket.

‘By the time I was there, there was a threat of terrorist attacks,’ he tells SportsMail.

These days his fear is elsewhere. 20 years later Taliban The country is back in control, and one of cricket’s greatest fairies is in danger of being exposed.

The Islamic fundamentalists were ousted in 2001 – the same year Afghanistan joined the cricket community. The country has since risen to the top of the table in the game and entered the Twenty20 World Cup by equipping a fearless, talented side and former South African all-rounder Lance Klusener as coach. Soon, however, politics may once again present Afghanistan on the international stage.

‘All that hard work…’ Moles say, ‘Hopefully it doesn’t go undone.’

Last summer, Moles was replaced, briefly, by Rais Ahmedzai. A former captain, Ahmedzai was among the first generation of Afghan cricketers whose run-up began in refugee camps in Pakistan – shrapnel from the Soviet-Afghan War. No electricity, no hospital enough to know Ahmedzai’s birthday.

Close enough, though, to a family that had television—early memories of Alec Stewart. So, too, stick ‘bat’ and ‘ball made of any plastic we can borrow’.

The first glimpse of the Afghanistan team came a few years later. Now the choice of spinner Rashid Khan is one of the best players in the world.

The ICC will discuss Afghanistan’s fate next month but already fast bowlers have started taking the field. Australia is threatening to postpone the one-off Test after the Taliban suggested banning girls from playing cricket.

Meanwhile, Rashid stepped down as captain over selection disputes with the Afghanistan Cricket Board (ACB), which is now led by a Taliban puppet.

At least his World Cup spot is secure for fear of the Taliban insisting on the use of his flag and national anthem. This could have led to the boycott of the players. Bad idea, given the likes of Rashid are ‘cult-worship’.

Ahmedzai says, ‘When I was younger, I knew Argentina because of Diego Maradona. ‘Now people know Afghanistan because of cricket. Because of Rashid.

Jafar Hand, author of Three Centuries: History of Cricket in the World and Afghanistan, says: ‘Cricket is more than a game for Afghanistan – cricket is hope. It’s time to help Afghanistan. Don’t leave them behind, everything will disappear.

‘Whenever there is a game of cricket, people feel safe, people think they are connected to the world, at least they have something to enjoy.’

For youngsters filling the streets for ad-hoc matches, it offers an escape route – the National Stadium opens its doors at the first light of summer.

‘The kids come in from 4.30 a.m. to 7 p.m.,’ Moles recalls.

Meanwhile, cricket has become an important tool of law and order for politicians.

Hand says, ‘A provincial governor told me that when there is a match, the graph of violence goes down.’ ‘In the countryside, if you have a TV in your house, the whole village will come and watch it.’

Cricket has become such a financial boon for Afghanistan – why would any government risk their international standing, ICC funding and protect their livelihoods?

“The Taliban love cricket, they know that cricket in Afghanistan is more than a game and can be a good political tool,” says Hand.

Moles never dealt directly with the rebel fighters, but messages were transmitted through the ACB.

One confirmed: ‘We will not come and target Andy Moles.’ He appreciated his help in Afghanistan cricket. Instead their targets were military vehicles and outposts.

‘If I got to the wrong place at the wrong time, it was unfortunate,’ says Moles.

Fortunately most of Moles’ tenure was spent behind bomb-blasting doors. ‘It’s breakfast and dinner when you leave your hotel room,’ he recalls.

Moles would be driven to work in an armored car, sometimes accompanied by guards and their AK-47s. Every journey involves a different route at different times. There were more armed guards greeting him upon arrival – some were placed in turrets around the ground. They kept watching, even as the kids honed their skills.

The mole went numb in most background explosions. But in 2017, during a regional game in Kabul, a suicide bomber detonated outside the stadium, killing himself and two others.

The 60-year-old says, ‘Adam Hollioke was coaching the other team. ‘Officials said a gas canister was clogged … only later did the truth really come out.’

The players of Afghanistan also take a tough stand every day. ‘The main issue for them was kidnapping,’ Moles says. Captain Mohammad Nabi’s father was taken in 2013 and for some time the Friday prayers also became a dangerous undertaking.

‘The Taliban and ISIS were attacking the mosques,’ Moles says: ‘The players just saw it as a risk they have to take.

‘There were a lot of “security guards” out of school kids who were given AK 47s. On several occasions, the Taliban would pay and take care of the family if one of these young children or security guards shot one of their masters.’

Either way, these everyday hazards have proved to be mere roadbumps on Afghanistan’s remarkable climb.

“They win games from situations they should never have been in because their whole lives have been about fighting,” Moles says.

‘So whenever they face tough situations, they don’t think about it, they just roll up their sleeves and move on with it.’

Now the problem is that no passion or skill can solve this political dispute.

A Taliban spokesman recently said that women would be banned from playing the sport. Under ICC terms, countries must have a women’s team in order to achieve Test status, which Afghanistan struggled for years to achieve in 2017.

Last November, 25 contracts for women players were announced. But some have now fled the country, and many feel abandoned by the ICC. Several players are in hiding, one of whom reportedly warned: ‘If you try to play cricket again we may come and hit you.’

A women’s team had already turned once in 2014 amid threats from the Taliban. According to the ACB, the Taliban have not ‘officially’ imposed any restrictions on the women’s sport. They say that the specific criteria for full-member status ‘do not apply to us’, either. Will that sleight of hand satisfy the ICC?

A ‘brutal’ decision to boycott Afghanistan, Hand says, would only punish civilians. Cricket has nothing to do with Taliban leadership. It belongs to the people,’ he says.

At least in this T20 World Cup there is a break from the carnage. Klusener, Shaun Tait (bowling coach) and former England head coach Andy Flower (consultant) have been tasked with plotting Afghanistan’s course.

“Many people are still in a panic,” Hand says. ‘The only thing they can be positive about is cricket.

‘Afghanistan is a poor country. It is very easy for terrorist organizations or other groups to act on youth, encouraging them to do bad things.

‘If the ICC takes any action against Afghanistan cricket it will be one of the negative effects… there will be no hope, no job, no desire for the future.’

But Ahmedzai will not agree yet. “I was born in the war and for the last 20 years we were still at war,” he says. ‘It’s normal for us. I am sure Afghanistan will offer something special in the World Cup.