Setting a grim field

How a plot was woven around the tyranny of the Taliban regime and the gentleman’s game

In 2000, as the Taliban regime planned to promote cricket, I was at a loss to understand how a tyranny would introduce cricket into Afghanistan without any knowledge of a game that encourages individuality, confidence, courage and defiance. The Taliban had banned every form of entertainment from music to movies. Then surprisingly, the regime announces cricket can be played in Afghanistan. The Taliban applied to the International Cricket Council for associate membership, backed by Pakistan. The council did not respond until after the regime was driven out of power in 2001. That was the genesis of the idea. I wanted to write about tyranny and what it does to people, and how people subtly rebel against it. Cricket was the ideal game for the project, deceptively calm yet with simmering discontent below the flannels. I needed to create a cricket match between the state-sponsored team and another local one. Since cricket was an unknown in Afghanistan, who would train this novice Eleven to take on the semi-pros and win. An Indian or Australian Test cricketer? That was not exactly exciting. I love cricket. I was nurtured on the game, along with my sisters and female cousins, and I thought here was a chance to create a woman who could play the game and inspire her cousins, spiritually, to rebel, through this game, against the Taliban regime. However, as a woman, she could not be a member of the team.