Afghan mine victims hit prejudice for six

he Afghan cricket team looked the part in their matching red one-day uniforms and white spiked shoes, with batsmen playing a range of textbook shots from balanced hooks to lofted drives.

In contrast, some of their international opponents, in black trainers, tracksuits and jeans, wielded their bats like clubs, swinging wildly at the ball like part-time sloggers in village leagues.

But finely timed strokeplay on a bumpy pitch that normally serves as the main helicopter landing area for coalition forces in the Afghan capital Kabul was not the main aim of the game.

Instead, the Afghans -- many of them amputees, victims of the landmines that still litter the countryside after three decades of bitter conflict -- aimed to show that disability is no bar to sporting prowess.

"My right leg was amputated from the knee down after I was hit by a mine," one of the players, Rasool Khan Abdul Rahimzai, told AFP. "But nobody knows I'm disabled. I can run fast and I also do Taekwondo."

The 19-year-old plays for a team from the Afghan Disabled and Vulnerable Society (ADVS), based in the eastern city of Jalalabad, which provides disabled Afghans with skills training and support.

One of the ways it does so is through cricket, coaching 16- to 24-year-olds for two hours a day every day to give them back the confidence and life they once feared may have been lost to deadly mines and other unexploded ordnance.

"We want to show that we are just like normal people," said Mohammad Younis, 25, who coaches the youngsters. "We can participate in all social activities, including sport. There shouldn't be embarrassment about us getting involved."

Cricket is still relatively new to Afghanistan. Most players learned the sport in neighbouring Pakistan, where millions of Afghans fled as refugees to escape the violence of Soviet invaders, civil war then the Taliban.

But it is becoming popular, particularly on the back of the success of the country's able-bodied team, who have secured a coveted berth in the short-format Twenty20 World Cup for the first time.

They will play top-ranking teams India and South Africa in the qualifiers at the tournament, which begins in the West Indies later this month.

"Able-bodied people have been playing the game and it's developed in Afghanistan," said ADVS director Sayed Mohammad Hossain Sadaqat, who uses a wheelchair. "As a result, disabled people have become interested, too.

"They don't feel disabled when they're playing and they're playing very well."

The hope now is that the team will be able to play against other disabled sides at home and abroad.

Saturday's six-overs-a-side tournament involved teams from the British, US, Australian, Canadian, Pakistani and Indian embassies, as well as a side from the Afghan National Army.

Each foreign team paid 150 dollars to participate, with the money going to support ADVS and bragging rights to the winners.

The event -- played in gloomy, damp and cold conditions -- came on the eve of the UN-sponsored international Day for Mine Awareness and Assistance in Mine Action.

Afghanistan suffers more problems with landmines than any other country in the world. Nearly 200,000 people have disabilities as a result of landmine blasts, the UN has said.

In 2009, UN clearance teams destroyed more than 50,000 anti-personnel mines, as well as some 700 anti-tank mines and one million pieces of "explosive remains of war" (ERW) or unexploded ordnance (UXO).

The number of people killed or maimed fell by 20 percent last year, with 40 casualties a month.

Kristen Leadem, Afghanistan country head of Clear Path International, a humanitarian organisation which works with landmine clearance and support groups, including ADVS, said disability still carries a stigma in Afghanistan.

But the cricketers' example -- which saw them emerge as winners in the final game against an "all-star" international team -- could play a part in cutting discrimination, she said.