Afghanistan will get another boost as a fledgling cricketing nation when they play former world champions Pakistan for the first time in a Twenty20 international in Sharjah on Sunday.
The Afghans learnt the game in Pakistan as refugees during the Russian invasion of their country in 1979 and have since had a fairytale rise in the game.
They received one-day status during their narrowly missed opportunity to qualify for the 2011 World Cup before progressing to two back-to-back World Twenty20 tournaments in 2010 and 2012, helping themselves to Associate membership of the International Cricket Council (ICC) this year.
The war-torn nation got a tremendous boost earlier this year when for the first time they qualified for the 50-over World Cup to be held in Australia and New Zealand in 2015.
Last month they once again lived up to their billing of one of the best Associate teams by qualifying for the World Twenty20 to be held in Bangladesh next year.
Afghanistan's Pakistan coach Kabir Khan said his team is hugely excited for Sunday's game.
"It will be a historic match for us," Kabir, who played four Tests and 10 one-days for Pakistan in 1990s, told AFP.
"Besides being historic, it will be a challenging match and if we do well then the world will take more notice."
Kabir said Pakistan have always provided his team with golden opportunities.
"Pakistan have helped us a great deal. They gave us a one-dayer last year," said Kabir of Afghanistan's first-ever ODI against a full ICC member last year in Sharjah, which Pakistan won by seven wickets.
That followed another one-dayer against Australia in September last year, which they also lost by 66 runs.
Sunday's Twenty20 will be Afghanistan's fifth against a Test playing country as they lost to India and South Africa in the 2010 World Twenty20 in the Caribbean and then went down against England and India two years later in Sri Lanka.
