New Delhi: Not many people in the world would know that a country like Afghanistan struggling with a lot of other things apart from sports also has a cricket team. Renowned for being one of the most disturbed places on the face of the planet, where more people pray for peace than engaging in any kind of sports activity, the victory against Kenya which helped Afghanistan qualify for the World Cups may leave a long-lasting effect on the country.

Afghanistan's short stint in the T20 World Cup was pretty impressive, specially their bowling where they created far too many chances but failed to capitalise on them because of their poor fielding in the deep where they dropped whatever came their way. Having said that one should keep in mind that they are not quite used to taking skiers as they live in a place where their first reaction is to run when they see something fall from the sky.

But they had put all that behind and created history by defeating the Kenyans by seven wickets to finish second in the World Cricket League Championship in Sharjah. The Afghans wer spot on with their bowling by picking up wickets at regular intervals and restricting the Kenyan batting line up to a paltry total of 93 runs and chased the runs quite easily with the bat. It took the Afghans 20.5 overs to reach the target losing only three of their batsmen.

Left-arm spinner Hamza Hotak, captain Mohammad Nabi and Hashmatullah Shaidi were in the thick of things in the match with Hotak being the pick of the bowlers with figures of 10-1-19-3, while Nabi scored 46 not out and played a captain's knock to see his team through.

This victory will keep the interest in cricket alive back in the country and may help in producing youngsters in the future. Younsters look upto winners and hopefully the kind of grit and determination the Afghans have shown will bring life back to the valley.

There is a lot of interest in cricket in the valley and a ticket to the World Cup is just the icing on the cake. There are quite a few young players coming up the ranks and hopefully with more exposure at the international level they can become better cricketers. There is nothing more that helps a young budding cricketer than rubbing shoulders with the likes of Kohli, Clarke or Pietersen. All we can hope for is this being just the beginning.

By Indian Sports News Network