Humans of the Cricket World Cup -1
Afghanistan vs England , 15 Oct 2023, Delhi
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Amongst the maze of Afghan fans at the cricket stadium in Delhi for the Afghanistan-England world cup match is Ali Ahmed. He is 40. Ali is of Afghan origin, from Jalalabad. He has been living in Delhi for six years. Ali works at a restaurant close to the Jamia Millia Islamia university. Ali's family lives with him in Delhi. Ali's parents live with him as well. Ali has come to the cricket match, like thousands of other Afghans. Like most of them, he is a cricket fanatic. He has watched Afghanistan play on a few earlier occasions. When the Afghan team was playing in Dehra Dun, he went there to watch them as well.
Today is a special day for Ali, something that sets him apart from most of the other fans in the stadium. Unlike most other fans, Ali has got his father Mustafa Ahmed with him to watch the match. Mustafa is now 67, and has had a tough life. The past six years, his family has been rebuilding their life in Delhi, bit by bit, drop by drop. It is Mustafa's first time at a cricket match in the stadium and he is super excited with the sights, the sounds and the vibrance. While they are excitedly looking around, the screen on the stadium shows Mustafa and Ali. Ali notices it, and asks daddy Mustafa to look at the screen. Daddy Mustafa takes a second to adjust, and is all smiles when he sees himself. Noticing that they are still on the screen, Ali hugs his father and kisses him on the cheek. Daddy Mustafa hugs Ali back.
Not far from where the father son duo is in the stands is Hamid Khan. Hamid is 30 year old. He is from Kabul. He has been living in Delhi for over seven years now. He stays in the locality of Malviya Nagar. He does odd jobs to makes ends meet, and to send money back home to his family, who are still in Afghanistan. He manages to meet his expenses in Delhi within 12,000 rupees a month and sends about twice that amount back home to his family. For the cricket match, he splurged over a thousand rupees to buy a ticket to watch his country play world champions England in the Cricket World Cup. "In our tough lives, cricket is the one thing that gives us joy and hope. It makes me forget my troubles", says Hamid.
On the field, Rashid Khan, the great leg spinner, has the ball. Rashid is the crowd favorite. Everyone adores him. He is a hugely popular figure all over India. His exploits in the IPL are well known. Not just the Afghan fans, Indian fans also cheer for him loudly. The crowd is happy just to see Rashid. Everything else they treat as a bonus. When Rashid balances the cricket ball from one leg to another as if it was a football, the stadium goes into delirium. The crowd invents slogans. the most popular one is - Dus Rupaiye ki Pepsi, Rashid bhai sexy.
The mood in the stands is upbeat. during the break, the DJ plays the song 'London Thumakda' . It is another matter that the guys from London are in deep trouble on the pitch. They are missing the services of Big Ben ( stokes).
When Naveen Ul Haq, the Afghanistan medium pacer, clean bowled England Captain Jos Butler with a beautiful inswinger , the crowd goes delirious. Gurpreet singh, a sardar ji from Lajpat Nagar, gets into a Bhangra. Many people join in. Mohit, from Noida, who is in the stands, puts up a banner for the English. It says, "Kohinoor wapis karo" (Return the Kohinoor).
The extraordinary delivery results in a complete turnaround for Naveen Ul Haq, the bowler. In the 2023 IPL, Naveen had a tiff with Virat Kohli, and things had become ugly. The Delhi crowd had not forgiven him, and whenever the ball would go to him, they would chant 'Kohli, Kohli' and troll him. But here, Naveen had done something extraordinary. Having got the English captain out, Naveen made Afghanistan sniff at the possibility of an improbable outcome. A victory against the reigning world champions.
Afghanistan continue to peg wickets at regular intervals, keeping the pressure on England. My worry at that time is that they should not allow the situation to get ahead of themselves and distract their focus. Rashid Khan is bowling to his namesake, Adil Rashid of England. This is the second time it is Rashid versus Rashid in the match. The first was when Adil Rashid bowled to Rashid Khan, in Afghanistan's innings. Leg spinner to Leg spinner.
"A leg spinner would never want to get out to a leg spinner, it would hurt his ego very badly", says the articulate lady in the commentary box. The lady reeling off statistics and analysing technical details such as the degree of spin is one of the world's greatest woman cricketers. Her name is Lisa Sthalekar. Lisa was the Australia women's cricket captain, and has won the Women's world cup four times, a feat achieved by no other cricketer on the planet. Lisa was born in Pune in India. A few days after her birth, she was abandoned by her biological parents and left outside an orphanage adjacent to the Sassoon hospital in Pune. At the age of three weeks, Lisa, who was known as Laila then, was adopted by Haren Sthalekar and Sue Sthalekar, her adoptive parents, who lived in Michigan in the United States. In a few weeks, Laila was renamed Lisa by her new set of parents, and her life shifted from the orphanage in Pune to a loving family in Michigan. A few years later, the family moved to Sydney and it was in the backyard of their Sydney house that Lisa first played cricket with her father, Haren. She had a natural flair for cricket, and started playing with the boys in the neighborhood. One day, her father took her to the North Sydney Oval ground, where a women's cricket test match was underway between Australia and England. That's where little Lisa realized that women play competitive cricket as well, and thereon dedicated her life to becoming one of the greatest cricketers the world has ever produced.
Lisa's remarkable story from the orphanage to being a four time world champion is much more than the stuff of dreams. It is a similar dream that the Afghans in the stands and on the field are nurturing. No, not to be a four time world champion, not yet. Rather, to revel in the sheer joy of being able to play sport. For a country ravaged by violence and political turmoil, consistently ranked amongst the lowest in the world on most human and developmental indices, cricket is one of the very few things that brings everyone together. Not only does it bring everyone together, it also gives them immense joy.
That's why, for the majority of the players in the Afghan team, being on a world stage was more than they had ever imagined. To top it all, the opportunity of being able to bring joy to thousands of their fans at the stadium, and millions on TV, was reason enough to celebrate, irrespective of the outcome. And finally, when Afghanistan won their most famous victory, they renewed faith, renewed hope, renewed optimism , not just for themselves , but for every person who believes in the power of dreams.
