KABUL -- On a balmy autumn day in west Kabul earlier this week, two contrasting realities of current-day Afghanistan were in play. Armed Taliban guards were using lengths of thick rubber hose and bamboo poles to control a crowd pressing at the gate to a compound where charity workers were handing out emergency food aid.
And on a strip of open ground alongside, a group of teenage boys were ranged around a pair of makeshift wickets, happily playing cricket. It is a sight you will see nationwide, because Afghans are cricket-mad.
