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Home / Sport / Cricket / Cricket World Cup

Paul Ford: Worth it to just watch the Blue Tigers roar

By Paul Ford
NZ Herald·
4 Mar, 2015 04:00 PM4 mins to read

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Dawlat Zadran of Afghanistan celebrates the wicket of Lahiru Thirimanne of Sri Lanka during the 2015 ICC Cricket World Cup match. Photo / Getty Images

Dawlat Zadran of Afghanistan celebrates the wicket of Lahiru Thirimanne of Sri Lanka during the 2015 ICC Cricket World Cup match. Photo / Getty Images

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Afghan? Yes please.

Sunday's fracas in the Fruit Bowl of New Zealand gives folks within cooee of Hawkes Bay a chance to get along and hail our team's uplifting performances. The Pango Kiapas are rightly riding a tsunami of support and it's Napier's turn to host.

But it should be much more than that.

New Zealand's opponents at Don McLean Park* won't interrupt the men in black hats extending their streak of wins to seven, but the Blue Tigers are an extraordinary team and provide us with a bevy of reasons to watch.

I've had huge admiration for the Afghan team ever since I saw Out of the Ashes, the 2010 warts-and-all documentary film made by Tim Albone, Leslie Knott and Lucy Martens. It traces the team's astonishing rise from war-torn Pakistani refugee camps to the T20 Cricket World Cup in the West Indies.

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If you haven't seen it, you should find 88 minutes for it soon. It is heart-warming and heartbreaking, and at times very funny. It also contains the best references to donkey meat and bisexualism in cricket's much storied history.

The bearded and beautifully suited president of the Afghan Cricket Federation, Mr Massoud, tells us: "Sport is a message of peace ... " - while a soldier resplendent in a flap jacket hovers nearby, Kalashnikov in hand.

Through it all, cricket emerges as a force of inspiration among the dust and suffering. These are humble beginnings indeed: A high-performance centre consisting of four nets, shoes are a luxury, towers of stones as wickets, outfields of rock and strewn with rubbish, cricket practice interrupted by Black Hawk helicopters and bombs.

Windows here are broken by bullets - not balls.

Meanwhile, in our land of plenty, we consider Brendon McCullum tough because he was raised in the mean streets of South Dunedin and has Mitchell-proof forearms of obsidian. Hmm.

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You should prepare to soak up the idiosyncrasies of the Blue Tigers on Sunday too. They have a joie de vivre for cricket that is infectious, and more cult heroes than any other team at the World Cup.

My favourite is 195cm paceman Hamid Hassan. He channels his inner Nicky Jenkins to unleash a cartwheel whenever he does something memorable on the field. Rambo comparisons accompany his sartorial choices which include war paint and a headband, and he is Afghanistan's highest paid sportsman. (For the record though, he prefers horror movies to shoot-'em-ups.)

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The theatrical appearance makes it hard to take him seriously, but you should. He is sixth equal on the list of fastest bowlers to 50 wickets in one-dayers, alongside Lenny Pascoe, Patrick Patterson and Sir Curtly Ambrose.

Hassan's fellow opening bowler will be the man who looks like a left-arm edition of Ishant Sharma, but with Jeff Thomson's epic run-up. On Cricinfo last week, Russell Jackson asked if grown adults were as giddy as him about the sight of Shapoor "Some Sugar On Me" Zadran charging in "like the love child of Shoaib Akhtar and Brendon Julian". Plus one here Russell.

Their supporters really know how to celebrate too. Two days before New Zealand annihilated Australia by one wicket (with 161 balls left), Afghanistan snuck past Scotland by the same margin (with 3 balls left). Both were thrilling encounters - the best matches of the cup so far.

Most Kiwis had eaten all of their fingernails and started on their toenails watching Eden Park - we shrieked at the excitement of the winning Williamson six, unleashed a succession of high-fives and hugs, then headed to the fridge or the pub for some cold ones.

Forty-eight hours earlier and 13,450km away from Eden Park, there was dancing in Kabul's streets and roads full of flag-waving, horn-tooting motorists. Six people were hurt by "celebratory gunfire" in another city. Many had watched Afghanistan's desperate chase and Shapoor's epic celebration thanks to pirated coverage powered by generator after the central power grid failed.

Yip, the Blue Tigers are one hell of a team to watch. I can't wait to soak up the action from their blazing bats, wild manes, cantankerous screaming, preposterous bowling run-ups and quasi-gymnastic exploits in the flesh.

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I'll leave my Kalashnikov in the cupboard.

* Named for the Scottish farmer, not the folk musician.

Paul Ford is a co-founder of the Beige Brigade (@beigebrigade). On Sunday he will be at McLean Park channelling his inner Bryan Waddle from The Alternative Commentary Collective caravan.

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