Afghans honing new wave of talent

On February 26 last year, Scotland were a couple of inches from winning their first game in a global event: the minute distance by which a throw missed the stumps the ball before Afghanistan sealed a one-wicket win in the World Cup match.

The year since has brought Scotland plenty of opportunities to dwell on their missed moment in Dunedin. "Guys still struggle to even think about that game," captain Preston Mommsen recently admitted.

Scottish cricket supporters will not look back on March 8, 2016 much more fondly. After 18 consecutive defeats in world events, victory finally seemed to beckon. Openers Kyle Coetzer and George Munsey, Scotland’s most and least experienced players on the world stage but united by their dynamism against spin, added 84 in 8.5 overs to put the side on course to chase down their target of 171.

Quick Single: Afghanistan edge Scotland in thriller

Instead, Scotland were throttled: 55 deliveries passed without a single boundary. “We always thought we had it in control and it slipped away without us even knowing,” lamented Mommsen.

In their despair Scotland will acknowledge Afghanistan’s hold. The two countries have met in six T20Is, and Afghanistan have won them all. While this record exaggerates the difference in quality between the sides, it highlights how Afghanistan are developing a ruthless streak against fellow associates.

While Coetzer and Munsey were bristling with intent, this felt like a game passing Afghanistan by. Dawlat Zadran, their lead fast bowler and normally a master of the toe-crushing yorker, was wayward. The side’s fielding was ragtag, with twos yielded too easily and catches spilled. Hamid Hassan and Shapoor Zadran, their kingpins in the World Cup, were both absent.

Afghanistan’s success has been underpinned by the most ferocious bowling attack in the non-Test world, regularly fielding three bowlers topping 90mph. But in Nagpur they proved their adaptability. A turgid pitch threatened to neuter their pacers, so Afghanistan unsentimentally omitted both Shapoor and Hamid. They bowled a full 15 overs of spin, and of all varieties: off-spin, left-arm spin, and two brands of leg-spin. The most intoxicating sight was of Rashid Khan, a 17-year-old with a bounding action bearing some resemblance to Mushtaq Ahmed and a fine googly.

In Khan’s promise lies proof that Afghanistan are honing a new wave of cricketing talent. Afghanistan’s first cricketing generation – the men, mostly products of refugee camps in Pakistan, who lifted Afghanistan from World Cricket League Division Five, where they faced Jersey, the Bahamas and Japan, to the 2010 World T20 in under two years and then the 2015 World Cup – are giving way to a breed honed by Afghanistan’s increasing professionalism. Afghan cricket today is a world of refined youth development, domestic T20 matches that attract over 10,000, and a four-day competition for the best players, something even Sri Lanka lacks. Romance and chaos are giving way to order and meticulous planning, a world of dietitians, fitness training and personal player development programs.

But not too quickly. Proof of as much comes in the exhibitionism of Mohammad Shahzad, who removed his helmet and bowed his head to the crowd upon reaching a half-century. This was another dazzling innings from associate cricket’s most thrilling batting sight, combining huge straight hitting with impudent improvisation: one delivery, way outside off-stump, was flicked over fine leg with such force that Shahzad ended up near point. Yet the ball ended up over the boundary rope, and that is the point. Afghanistan’s cricket team have no interest in aesthetics or the captivating power of their tale. They want only to win, and with each passing day they are finding more ways of doing so.