CHENNAI: Rashid Khan and his Afghanistan teammates have travelled across the globe to play cricket and have achieved several honours, but one dream of them is still unfulfilled- playing an international match at their home.
The war-ravaged nation has never hosted a global fixture at Kabul, and the devastation has been so soul-shattering that they were forced to adopt cities abroad as home venues.
In line with that, Greater Noida, Dehradun, Lucknow in India, while Sharjah and Abu Dhabi in the UAE became their home bases at various times.
But Rashid is not ready to abandon his dream.
"Yes, that's bigger than the World Cup to be honest, for me and for the team and every individual. We play an international game in Afghanistan and then all these people will see how people back home in Afghanistan are, how they are welcoming players and how they are enjoying cricket and that's something which is more than a dream to be playing international cricket in your own country," a solemn-looking Rashid told on the eve of the T20 World Cup match against New Zealand here.
Rashid said the group was accorded love wherever they travel, particularly during the IPL, but he knew that playing in front of a home crowd would be an entirely different proposition.
"When we play IPL here (in India), when we play an international game, we see how much their international stars are supported by the local fans and how much they give them love, like we get so much love, I am not saying we don't get love here. Whenever we play here, we get lots of love and support, especially playing in IPL and also the World Cup we played (2023), we haven't felt like being away from Afghanistan. But when you play in your own country, it's a kind of different feeling and the world will see the country Afghanistan as well, how beautiful it is. But hopefully, one day we make that possible for an international team to come and they play cricket there," he said.
Along with lack of international cricket, Afghanistan also does not have any notable domestic system, and Rashid said picking up a national team would be much tougher.
"We don't have much cricket in Afghanistan, especially the shorter format.
We have four-day cricket, but not much of the white ball cricket and then some time for you as a captain, it becomes very hard to pick the team because you don't have many options like in India where lots of tournaments are happening every day and you see lots of talents," he said.
"For me, what we are missing at the moment is competition. When you have competition, you will try your best. Any spinner from Afghanistan who wants to play for Afghanistan will know that he will have to compete with Rashid, to compete with Noor or Mujeeb. The target is set very high and I also have to work very hard. I feel if we get that kind of competition in the batting as well, we are going to go to different level. But it only comes when you have a very strong domestic cricket, you have lots of competition back home, that's where you can get the talent and I hope we focus more on our domestic cricket. But whatever you see on TV, it's all just natural talent," he said.
Rashid also hoped to see a women Afghanistan team playing in international matches.
"I feel like that's the kind of criteria for, I think, being a full member. So, the ICC, the Afghanistan Cricket Board, they have the better idea. But we love to see anyone representing Afghanistan on any stage, it's a proud moment. But I think it's all about the decision to be taken by the ACB and ICC, sometimes things as a player, you don't have much in the control and we only think about the controllable things."
"But in this situation, we are in a kind of situation where you can't really have much say in it, but yes, the support you have there, it's always there, but bigger people come in and they take the decision and they take it forward," he said.