Friday in Kabul

Headscarves are wound tight around heads with sunglasses nestled on invisible noses. "Al Quaeda" says Shalqullah, but when he pulls down the white cloth that bulges when he speaks, he is smiling underneath, proud to let me have a free ride on his motorbike. During the week hes an intelligence services officer, but on Fridays, he and another 40 motorbike owners come to a park where 8 football pitches, 3 cricket grounds, 10 wickets overlap. Shalqullah rents out his $600 150cc bike for 15 afs a lap of the dusty mesh of playing fields opposite the national stadium. If you know how to ride, you can go on your own, but if he can sense the shakes building inside at the thought of stalling, or crashing, on a dusty plain surrounded by football players and flying balls, hell sit behind you guiding your hands and feet.

Down one side of the park, facing the street where the infant military parades one day a year, there are stands facing away from the pitches. When the final of the national cricket competition begins, the fans sit in the shade of a fruit stall, or on a wall, in the gaps in the fence.

In Taliban days people played football, but in traditional dress. "If you wore knickers the Taliban would beat you, would kick your ass," says Ashmal, laughing. He means shorts. He doesn't laugh when he tells you what the half time show was. "they bring criminals and kill them. I can show you where the holes in the wall are from the bullets. They have a doctor to cut off their arm or hands." He is a regular in a Kabul team supplemented by the under 15's today because some members are in Pakistan, where most of the team learned how to play cricket.

They practice with tennis balls wound in electrical tape. "This ball can last us a year because we can tape it back up. The hard balls are expensive, maybe 4 dollars, so we share them and take turns buying them. The cheaper ones last maybe a day."


Kabul win the toss, and almost instantly a dust eddie a meter wide chases the umpires and captains from the wickets, whipping up rubbish to set it down in the middle of a football game. Spin Ghar will bowl first. They already played this morning to make it to the final, and the Kabul captain wants to keep his team out of the sun and tire the challengers.

Holding his hand up against the sun and squinting to keep the dust out of his bloodshot eyes Zabi points out the boundaries. Chunks of wall broken in bombings form one side, the wall itself is another. One of three goalposts he waves at marks the third and a more obvious goal is the last side of the square.

Well within those limits there are two clusters of people sheltering in the sparse shade of fruit juice stalls. There is the expectation that the crowd will move. "Good shot" he says, with his best English pronunciation, "If it hits them, then its four, unless its in the air." He explains as Abdullah, at 13, the youngest on the pitch sends the crowd scampering. With that he has reached his 50 and the team applaud and shout.

"When the Taliban were here we could not clap, or they would kick your ass!", says Ashmal. Clapping is not enough for him, in appreciation for a task he knows he can not match he picks up a stone and bangs it against a metal upright on the fence. The pitch of the metal poles is not determined by their length, but by the size and number of bullet holes.

Everyone fought over this ground. "Russies, Taliban, Mujihadin, USA, coalition. you know, Mix". War is war, bullet holes are bullet holes. Six is Six.

The thirteen year old Abdullah finishes on a flourish before one of two volunteer umpires calls him out.

Ashmal is bowled out on his first ball. He points at the floor. The surface of most of the playing pitch is irregular and rocky, but for the wicket they have lain down a cement rectangle. It is uneven and the opposition spin bowler has managed to find a place where the ball bounces low.

Halfway through his walk of shame he meets Zabi, they exchange bats and he gives Zabi the team's second crotch box. Ten steps from the wicket, at this exchange they are in the middle of a sparse crowd of bystanders, players in other games, locals taking a shortcut across the pitch, Jamie taking photos. Dodging rented motorbikes in unsteady hands just inside the boundary, Zabi makes it to the wall where the rest of the team sits.

King Amanullah's mausoleum crowns a gentle hill behind the wickets. The dome is in disrepair. Above it a flock of kites rise and fall in the gusts rushing up the hill.