Afghanistan Cricket Board: Contributing to peace, health, unity and development
The Afghanistan Cricket Board (ACB) is the governing body of cricket in Afghanistan and a member of the Asian Cricket Council and International Cricket Council. It has an enthusiastic staff of mostly younger Afghans who are committed to the development of the game and have achieved high levels of success considering that cricket has only a 12 year history in the country.
Already, inroads are being made internationally. Players see themselves as playing for Afghanistan and speak of being "peace ambassadors" for the country.
The ACB has a strong commitment to sport as a tool for development. The vision statement is: "To make cricket the most popular sport in Afghanistan, contributing to peace, health, unity and development."
They are ideally placed to work towards that vision since more than 70% of the population under the age of 30 and this is the main target group of the organisation - although cricket is growing across all sectors of the community. Cricket is the largest peaceful movement or activity in the country - with provincial teams now competing from 32 of the 34 provinces.
A popular and organic movement
Nothing else brings Afghans together in the way that cricket does. Crowds of 5 to 10 thousand people gather at major matches. No other activity, other than an occasional football match, gathers anywhere near that number in Afghanistan. Some tournaments take place in one or two of the most unstable provinces in the country.
One of the great things is that cricket was introduced here by Afghans and not by the British or any foreign intervention. Millions of Afghans fled to Pakistan during the Russian invasion, the subsequent civil war and Taliban period. There they learnt cricket, found they were good at it and brought it back home with them when they returned.
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