TO watch six cricket matches in nine days takes some serious dedication; but I survived and, at the end of the final game, Afghanistan v Jersey, really enjoyed being part of a 1,000-crowd at Grainville for all kinds of reasons.

Okay, so the Afghans won and Jersey lost by two wickets, having set the visitors a modest target of 80 runs in 50 overs at less than two runs an over.

But at 2.50 pm, with the Afghans batting, their coach, the splendidly ebullient Taj Malik Alam, hinted that the game would be over within an hour – give or take ten minutes.

For until then the Afghan batsmen hadn’t messed around. In all of their other games they had polished off lesser teams, with the bat, in under two hours.

However, on a treacherous Grainville wicket with the slowest outfield they’ve had so far this year, our Jersey cricketers pushed them all the way and, in a parallel universe, would have won the game. It wasn’t to be, of course.

Afghanistan won; Malik Alam didn’t have to throw himself into the Atlantic as he’d promised if they’d lost, and back home in Kabul every internet café website was taken over by cricketing nuts who forgot the bombs and the Americans for a little while to relish, instead, their cricket team winning the ICC World Cricket League, Division V, for the very first time.

For those who didn’t watch any of the Afghan games, let me offer a few comments as to the team’s overall behaviour.
On their first day in Jersey fellow sports writer Lauren Gouyette went down to see them practice. ‘They were all laughing and smiling,’ she said, ‘so I asked them why.’

‘Because two days ago these players were living in Kabul,’ she was told.

Yet the Afghans, despite being one of the competition’s pre-match favourites, didn’t exactly endear themselves to some of the teams they played against. Why? – Because although they never sledged any of the opposition, in all of their games when they were out on the field, they never stayed quiet.

In their semi-final against Nepal, for example, the first two Nepalese batsmen were out partly because of the hubbub that surrounded them after every ball, from the very first delivery.

‘Jabba, jabba, jabba, good bowling, good bowling,’ I wrote down in my notebook and could have written it a thousand times as the Afghans’ constant chattering destroyed more than one of the opposition batsmen’s concentration.

It must have been a nightmare for the umpires – for while sledging isn’t allowed, there’s nothing in the rule book to say you can’t talk to a friend, even if he’s 50 yards away and you have to yell at him across the wicket.

In the final, against Jersey, the barrage of cross-field talk was toned down (partly, I believe, because the umpires finally had a stern word with them).

But to put their enthusiasm into perspective; apart from their constant chatter in the match against Nepal I counted the number of lbw appeals they made in the first 20 overs. It was 28, including one leg-before-wicket appeal which was given as a wide.