‘I learnt all of my English from Scottish people. I spent a lot of time in Edinburgh’
he could join a cricket club. The social worker knew nothing of cricket, but consulted Google and found a club that trained on Wednesday nights in the West End of Glasgow.
Habib trained with them, and also picked up matches with teams from the city’s Pakistani community, who often paid him to play.
Cricket helped him in a variety of ways, during his fiveyear stay in Scotland. “I learnt all my English from Scottish people,” he said. “I spent a lot of time in Edinburgh and they don’t speak like Glaswegians.”
The club he came to call home was Carlton, which was produced Scotland internationals such as Gordon Drummond and Preston Mommsen. His statistics still feature on the Edinburgh club’s website, under the name MB (Mohammed Habib) Ahmadzai (which is the name of his tribe).
Habib had to leave Scotland in 2010. Despite the epic trip he made to get away from Afghanistan, he was by now ready to return there, rather than make another new home somewhere else. He had a good reason, he says. “I wanted to go back to Afghanistan as I knew cricket was getting big there.”
On his return, he found life had changed. He got a job, again across the border in Peshawar. He was focused on work, and gathered enough savings to make one more trip. Again, it proved seminal.
He flew from Kabul to Dubai to visit the friends he had made in the Scotland national team. They were playing in the qualifying tournament for the 2010 World T20, which was to be played in the West Indies.
It was a portentous event. Afghanistan won the tournament – coincidentally beating the US in the process – to secure passage to a global event for the first time.
When qualification was achieved, via a semi-final win over the UAE, there was a wild outpouring of joy by Afghan supporters. It spilled over onto the outfield, as supporters performed traditional “attan” dances and waved framed photos of President Hamid Karzai, as well as the Afghan tricolour.
By the time the final took place, later that evening against Ireland, word was well and truly out. Dubai International Stadium was engulfed, and supporters scaled locked fences of the ground’s top tier to find seats.
Taj Malik Alam, the assistant coach, was handed the microphone to announce in Pashto across the public address system to plead for no more pitch invasions. His request was heeded without complaint. Despite the triumph for his compatriots on the field, Habib was mulling the suggestions made by his Scottish mates that perhaps Dubai might provide greater opportunities for him than his home country did. And safer, too.
His course was altered again when he found a job with a burger restaurant chain in the UAE. His move from there into A-division cricket came about when he was discussing the merits of a burger with a customer, who also happened to be the owner of one of the country’s leading cricket teams.
Flitting between playing high-level cricket here, bowling to leading touring teams in the ICC Academy nets, as well as occasionally travelling back to Afghanistan to play in increasingly sizeable T20 tournaments, he made a name for himself. Habib the Afghan was turning heads.
His cricket career came full circle when he caught the eye of Aaqib Javed, one of Pakistan’s World Cup heroes in 1992 who was now coach of the UAE.
“By now my main aim was to play for UAE,” Habib said. “I was training with them as they were getting ready to play at the 2015 World Cup.”
His hopes were subsequently dashed when, while changing jobs, his return to Dubai from Afghanistan was delayed to the point he missed national team trials.
By necessity, cricket has now taken a back-seat to his day job in sales for a mobile phone company. It means he is no closer to playing for his adopted country.
But a man who has been through so much to reach this point is not about to give up just yet. “I’m thinking I will give it one more year,” he said.