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Up to 120 girls and 200 boys, learning how to bowl, bat and field, will spend three days with members of the Afghanistan cricket team and a female trainer specially brought from Pakistan at separate training camps that started a day earlier in eastern Nangarhar province. The training camps started Monday have been arranged by the Afghan Youth Cricket Support Organisation (AYSCO) with financial support fromthe United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) through the provincial youths' department.
At the Sherzai Stadium, about 120 girls received training from two female coaches, including Salma Faiz, from Peshawar, Pakistan, the AYCSO founder, Raees Ahmadzai, told Pajhwok Afghan News.
The females are students of high schools in the Jalalabad, learning how to bowl, bat and field before a test match among them, he added.
At the Nangarhar Cricket Academy, he said, dozens of boys would be trained by former Afghanistan cricket team trainer, Kabir Khan, and another trainer, Asadullah, on October 12-13.
The Afghan cricket board has a separate branch for female players and had invited females wishing to participate in the female national team, Ahmadzai, said. "So far 600 boys have been trained in eight provinces and 50 girls in Kabul," he said.
It was for the first time that a cricket training camp is being organised in eastern provinces.
Nangarhar governor, Gul Agha Sherzai, opened the girls' camp during a ceremony at the Sherzai stadium. "I am happy to see females playing cricket game and am thankful to the Youths department and directorate of women affairs and the UNICEF for this arrangement", Sherzai said, adding security situation in the province was good and boys and girls were able to play games without any fear.
"I am happy to learn cricket", said a grade-9 student of the Malika Soraya high school. She said girls have the right to play games and that her family allowed her to attend the camp.
Cricket in Afghanistan is growing since the national team participated in the ICC Twenty20 tournament in May this year.
"When we were children in the refugee camps, no one was there to teach us cricket and we had to learn ourselves," said Ahmadzai, adding it was their responsibility to share their skills and help build the future of the country.
The camps also marked the International Year of Youth celebrated under the theme "Dialogue and Mutual Understanding."
"Sports brings people together on an equal plying field that transcends development of important skills and attitudes that are key to the future of our youth," said UNICEF representative to Afghanistan, Peter Crowley.
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I never understood how a Kandahari[Gul Agha Sherzai] could be in charge of Nangarhar. I figured the cultures might be really different. Nonetheless, his Kandahari embroidery on his kamees looks really nice.