لراوبر ویب پاڼه لراوبر يو افغان – تازه خبرونه
Similarities between Afghan politics and the Nangarhar Cricket Team / Academy.
As cricket is a new vastly growing sport in Afghanistan, and as many global media mention / consider it as a possible answer/solution to all the miseries and sufferings which Afghans have been through the last 30 years, one would at least expect – differently than usual in Afghan politics- a fair competition in the game, management, selection etc, but nothing is less true.
Let me keep this story short; I would like to compare the Nangarhar Cricket Board /Academy to the Afghan way of doing politics.
Two main characteristics of Afghan politics as we all have experienced by now: First one is using a beautiful and nobel slogans and a lots of promises, just to deceive and manipulate the people in order to gain power. But once in power, these promises remain completely unfulfilled, as we all know. The second one is corruption and friends politics. Once you are in power, you try to create a kind of political monopoly: all major seats / posts are entrusted to your own family members, acquaintances and friends, and otherwise selling them for money, a lot of money.
So firstly, let us compare the Nangarhar Cricket Team / Academy to the political system in our country, to begin with the first characteristic, namely the one with the promising slogans.
Just to keep it simple, I am going to quote the slogan on the front-page of their facebook account for comparison. It says:
Slogan /Aim:
“To develop cricket and promote young players to be able to play for good well of great country Afghanistan.”
To be honest, this slogan (aim) sounds very noble, sincere and appropriate. It sounds almost exactly the same as the ones which we all hear during the election campaigns throughout the country.Explanation follows:
The Nangarhar Team as well as the Nangarhar Cricket Academy are clearly dominated by a few persons, namely the brothers Taj Malik Alam, Hasti Gul Abed and so on. They try to attract young cricket lovers to their academy with these beautiful slogans, but in fact they will never give those young players the chance to profile themselves, develop themselves and gain experience. To confirm this statement, I will use as a random example the recent two matches in Kabul, against Nooristan and Badakhshan.
As we all know, those two mentioned teams are relatively much weaker than Nangarhar Cricket Team and so you would expect the management to give the young players a chance to play, even if it’s only for gaining the experience and “developing cricket” as they call it. But no, mister Abed had to play himself, and give chance to his brother and some of his friends to play. The excuse used by the captain and management was: “these are important matches to win, in order to get in the quarterfinals and so the senior players will have to play”. This same excuse will doubtless be used in the coming games, because the closer you get to the finals, the more important the matches are. This will again and again provide the opportunity to Mr. Abed to play himself, his brother Aftab Alam and some of their friends, despite the extreme poor performance of Mr.Abed in the last two matches. Unfortunately this also means that some young but very talented players- like Pakhtun Yosufzai, Batin Shah, Shaukat Zaman, Emal and Faridullah– from the Nangarhar cricket team will not get the chance either to show or develop their talents. Or with a little bit of luck, they will be named in the teamlist, but get no chance to play- either bat or bowl. I cannot find any other explanation to this act rather than the fact that these young players are probably considered as a threat to the positions of these old men Taj Malik, Hasti Gul Abed and their family members and friends in the Afghan cricket.
The second main characteristic of the Afghan politics is called “friends politics” in order to build a monopoly. That is something which is very much reflected in the Nangarhar Cricket team / Academy. While Taj Malik, the eldest brother, manages once again to become the national coach. Karim Sadeq plays in the Afghan national team, but still there are rumors this respected player will play in the Nangarhar team in the upcoming matches of the inter-provincial tournament in Kabul, which I will consider as a huge insult to this well-respected player of the national team.
Mr. Abed either works as technical staff to the ACB, but even though he will play in the provincial cricket team, just like his brother Aftab Alam. And it’s not only playing in the team, but also in a privilege position as an opener batsman and attack bowler. There are even rumors going on that they are trying to get their other younger brother in the national under-19 cricket team. This will be definitely the absolute form of a monopoly in cricket.
Conclusion
As the above equations have confirmed, the Nangarhar cricket team is unfortuantely an exact copy of the Afghan politics. Meaningless slogans, friends politics and corruption are the most usual practices. And believe me, these things do not promise a bright future, neither for the Nangarhar Cricket nor for the national cricket (since Nangarhar is considered as the cricket capital of Afghanistan), but it’s rather a lot of injustice, self-enrichment, and a very bad example for the upcoming generations.
Hopefully this issue will attract the needed attention of the Afghanistan Cricket Board / Afghanistan Cricket Federation.
With kind regards,
