A little over a year before Afghanistan’s triumphs at the Cricket World Cup in India, the team was summoned to the interior ministry in Kabul for a photo call with Sirajuddin Haqqani, the head of a terrorist network responsible for some of the worst suicide attacks during two decades of conflict.
Now the all-powerful interior minister, Haqqani, who led the most radical Taliban faction with ties to al-Qaeda dating back to the 1980s, smiled benevolently as he was joined by a team on the cusp of a remarkable rise towards the top tier of cricket.
“This sport is liked by the youth, especially teenagers,” Haqqani said. “But we had stumbled into bad times and we were engaged in bloodshed and wars. We have not fully
