KABUL: Residents of Kabul on Tuesday rejoiced over Afghanistan’s recent victory against Scotland in a T20 World Cup game, celebrating the win as the first slice of good news to emerge from the war-torn country since a Taliban takeover in mid-August and proof of a nation’s will to survive. 
On Monday, the Afghan team dished out a 130-run shellacking to Scotland in Group II at the Twenty20 World Cup.
The win marks another high point in the remarkable rise of Afghanistan’s cricket team.
Emerging from dusty refugee camps in Pakistan and only officially formed in 1995, the Afghan national team has overcome hurdles — war, terrorism, displacement — unknown to most athletes and now consistently ranks in the world’s top 10.
Despite practicing in often primitive conditions amid the insecurities of daily life, the team, and players like leg spinner Rashid Khan, arguably the most famous Afghan alive, and big-hitting batter Mohammad Nabi, have become the face of hope for a nation long at war. 
Monday’s win cemented that feeling for many Afghans.
“Raising the Afghanistan national flag and the playing of the national anthem in these games indicates that Afghanistan can still breathe,” Kabul resident Abdul Ahad Hassani told Arab News. “Beating Scotland by a huge margin by Afghanistan National Team in the T20 cricket World Cup shows that Afghanistan still exists, and no one can defeat the new generation that we have.”
The optimism is in contrast to the grim outlook for the country, which is in a severe economic crisis and whose interim Taliban-led government has not yet been recognized by any nation in the world. 
Even so, said Ali Khan Shanghai, a shopkeeper in Kabul, Monday’s victory showed “that a country in the name of Afghanistan still exists.”
Due to visa issues, the Afghan team arrived in the UAE late for the tournament and with the experience of having played only three T20 internationals against Zimbabwe since March last year due to the coronavirus pandemic.
But the victory was a “great comeback” for the nation and the team, said Abdul Saboor Atayee, a student at the Al-Azhar University in Kabul.
“We are still here,” he told Arab News. 
While the Taliban are not in favor of public entertainment and banned many forms of it during their previous rule in 1996-2001, officials celebrated the cricket win.
Taliban government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid took to social media to wish the team more success.
“Congratulations to all Afghans on the victory of the Afghan team in the ongoing World Twenty20,” Mujahid tweeted on Monday. “Congratulations to the team and wish them more success in the future.”
Afghanistan’s permanent representative-designate to the United Nations and former Taliban spokesman, Suhail Shaheen, also tweeted:
“Well done boys! May Allah favor you with future victories.”
Afghanistan Cricket Board (ACB) member Hajji Hassin Zadran told Arab News there was hope for more wins in the tournament.
Afghanistan will next take on neighboring Pakistan on Friday.
“We hope that in this T20 [tournament], we would be one of the major teams,” Zadran said. “Our lions created history, they are the cause of smiles, and we wish them further success.”