On June 22, cricket’s world governing body International Cricket Council (ICC) handed Afghan and long-time associate nation Ireland the coveted Test status, propelling them to the elite group of cricketing nations.

The Irishmen’s promotion came as little surprise to the cricketing world as the island nation have had a long history in world cricket. Then, after stepping into the mainstream with the 2007 World Cup in West Indies, the team have enjoyed a “giant-killer” status, be it in the Twenty20 or 50-over version of the game.   

Afghan, on the contrary, have seen their cricket stock rise meteorically in the last decade. What’s more, as a geographic neighbour and a fierce on-field rival that entered international cricket eight years after Nepal, Afghan’s promotion to the highest echelon of the cricketing pyramid has come as a rude awakening of just how damaging Nepal’s own inefficiencies, poor governance, inadequate infrastructure and a lack of domestic setup has been.

Afghan’s test-status might yet come as an inadvertent blessing for Nepali cricketers in the future—who now have one less powerful rival competing for precious few berths to international tournaments—but for now, it has given Nepali cricket serious food for thought about where it all went awry.

The Afghan fairytale

Afghan, a nation in war and turmoil, were late entrants to the sport, having only played their first official tournament in 2004. The Afghan Cricket Board, the country’s governing cricketing body, was just formed in 1995. So, to have come so far speaks volumes about the progress they have made.

Although, cricket matches have been recorded in Kabul as early as 1839, the seeds for Afghan’s belated bloom in international cricket were sown in refugee camps in Pakistan, where thousands of Afghans fled to after the American invasion in 2001. In 2004, when Nepal wrapped up Afghan for a partly 100 runs in the 2004 ACC Trophy third-place playoff, Afghan were the clear underdogs, even among the Asian non-Test playing countries.

But the Afghan players gradually improved their game as they began to play in the core cricket cities in Pakistan. And some of their cricketers even went to England to learn the finer aspects of the game. When Afghan returned to the ACC tournament two years later, they had transformed into a respectable side, and they defeated Nepal in another third-place playoff game in 2006, and then repeated that performance in 2008.