Journey just beginning for Afghanistan

On New Year's Day 1985, Mohammad Nabi was born in a refugee camp in Pakistan. 

War between the Soviet Union and the Mujahideen had led his family to flee Afghanistan.

Nabi lived at a refugee camp near Peshawar for the first 16 years of his life. 

The Nabi family had never played cricket, but here they came across it for the first time. 

They did not approve, seeing it as a needless distraction for their son from school. 

Quick Single: Afghanistan reach Super 10 stage

The Nabi's saw education as their son's future, not cricket. 

He would not be deterred, and snuck away to play the game he loved whenever he could. 

The young Mohammad played tape-ball cricket with his friends wherever space could be found, and eventually progressed to play for a club in Peshawar. 

As his family recognised his gifts, as a canny off-spinner and belligerent batsman, so they grew to adore the game too.

The Nabis took their love of the game back to Kabul when they moved there after the US overthrew the Taliban in October 2001. 

"There were no grounds, nothing in Afghanistan at that time," Nabi later remembered. 

It did not matter. 

Mohammad was imbued with talent, guts and drive. 

When his family returned to Afghanistan, the Afghan Cricket Federation, formed in Kabul in 1995, had just been awarded affiliate membership by the ICC. 

Both of these landmarks came under the Taliban's control, proof of how even they have come to embrace cricket. 

"It is the favourite game of everyone in the country, including the Taliban," the Afghan Cricket Board's then chief executive said two years ago. 

The young Mohammad thrived in Afghanistan's nascent cricket team. 

He played for Afghanistan against Pakistani sides in 2003, and then took 3-28 in Afghanistan's first ever official international, against Oman in the Asian Cricket Council Trophy in 2004.

Nine years later, Nabi was captain when the side needed to win its last four matches in the World Cricket League Championship to secure qualification for its first World Cup. 

In May 2013, Nabi's father, a wealthy car salesman, was abducted in the city of Jalalabad. 

For more than two months, his whereabouts were unknown, despite a concerted effort by the government to find him. 

"It was quite a difficult time," Nabi said. 

"It was very hard to find my dad."

At the start of August, Nabi and his team faced two crucial World Cup qualifying matches in Namibia. 

He decided that he could not miss the tour. 

"My brother said, ‘It's not your issue – inshallah when you reach Namibia we will have good news'. When I reached Namibia after three days my brother called and said, ‘Your father is found by the government.' I was very happy." 

Nabi celebrated by playing the match of his life. 

He smashed 81 not out from 45 balls, and then took 5-12. 

Two months later, Nabi's heaved the ball through midwicket against Kenya to secure a place at the 2015 World Cup. 

Afghanistan were unable to play at home, but several thousand partisan supporters crammed into Sharjah, on hand as the entire Afghan team ran from the dressing room to hoist Nabi into the air.

In February 2015, Nabi was captain as Afghanistan bested Scotland by one-wicket in an intoxicating game in Dunedin. 

With uninhibited, zestful cricket, Afghanistan captured hearts and minds in the World Cup.

It wasn't enough. 

Afghanistan are not content to be world cricket's feel-good story, nor simply to reach world events. 

They want to beat Test teams on the global stage.

Often Afghanistan have seemed too desperate to impose themselves on Test opposition in world events. 

In the first stage of the last World T20, they were tipped to beat Bangladesh, and were promptly bundled out for 72. 

On their World Cup debut against Bangladesh, they imploded to 3-3 and, although they pushed Sri Lanka hard, left the tournament having failed in their target of upsetting a full member.

In the year since Afghanistan have repeatedly exposed the myth that any talent gap exists between full members and the top associate nations. 

They played Zimbabwe in four series, two in ODIs and two in T20Is, and won the lot.

The upshot was that Afghanistan arrived for their shootout match with Zimbabwe as favourites, in spite of their inferior status and receiving less than three times as much funding from the ICC. 

As Mohammad Shahzad was blitzing 40 off 23 balls, playing with the brashness and unorthodoxy that only he can, Afghanistan were embracing the pressure of great expectations. 

But his dismissal sparked a meek collapse of 4-14, and fears that Afghanistan were channelling the spirit of big match batting collapses past. 

At 4-63 after eight overs, Nabi arrived at the crease. 

He joined Samiullah Shenwari, a teammate for a decade.

Together the two knew they represented Afghanistan's best chance of posting a match-winning total, and of progressing beyond the first round of a world event for the first time in five tournaments.

The next few overs had all the slow-burning tension of a Test. 

Nabi and Shenwari worked the ball around with ostentatious care, knowing that to lose another wicket risked implosion. 

In the process Nabi went against his better instincts: he is the only player in cricket history to hit the first ball in both innings of their first-class debut for six, a feat he managed for MCC against Sri Lanka A in 2006. 

The pair had taken Afghanistan to 4-96 when Nabi charged down the wicket to Wellington Masakadza. 

He missed, but so did the wicket keeper. 

In Masakadza's next over, Nabi heaved two monstrous sixes over midwicket. 

He and Shenwari would add 98 and lead Afghanistan to their highest total in a World T20.

Fresh from making 50, which he celebrated only with a perfunctory acknowledgement of the crowd, eschewing the histrionics beloved of Shahzad, Nabi delivered three overs of off-spin. 

No ball seemed overly threatening, but it was flat and precise, and yielded just 14 runs while claiming Richmond Mutumbami's wicket. 

It never even threatened to be close: Zimbabwe were crushed by 59 runs.

Afghanistan have had many fine victories. 

But never have they defeated a Test nation on the world stage. 

Never have so few been surprised by a landmark Afghan win. 

Really, this was a victory so remarkable because of how unremarkable it seemed: Afghanistan have propelled themselves to the stage when beating a Test team in the WT20 seems routine.

But the players knew what they had achieved. 

Shapoor Zadran, a stallion of a quick bowler who was not even selected in Afghanistan's XI, such is their burgeoning strength, gathered the victorious side around for a selfie. 

Each player embraced coach Inzamam-ul-Haq. 

The fast bowler Hamid Hassan, whose knees have been repaired more times than he would care to remember, sunk to the ground overwhelmed by joy. 

After Afghanistan were reprieved by rain in a crucial game with the Cayman Islands in 2009, Hassan gave Afghan cricket's definitive quote. 

"I have seen people die and I have not shed a tear," he said. 

"But there is something about cricket that gets me here [pointing to his heart]. Cricket is our chance."

Nabi is a rather less demonstrative sort. 

His joy seemed relatively understated, but it was no less great for that. 

On Twitter he declared: "You can't measure how ecstatic we are!"

For a few weeks at least, Afghanistan will now be part of cricket's elite 10. 

Sri Lanka, South Africa, England and the West Indies lie in wait in the Super 10s. 

Each will disregard Afghanistan at their peril. 

A journey that begun in the refugee camps of Peshawar 31 years ago is not done just yet.