Afghanistan's nascent cricket body is desperately seeking support to help the country's rugged youth realise their dream of rapidly improving to match other fringe national teams.

"I want people to pick up the bat and put down the gun," Allah Dad Noori told Reuters. "It's a beautiful game and I want more and more Afghans to play it."

The fast bowler who is a founder of the Afghanistan Cricket Federation (ACF) travelled to India with fellow ACF vice-president Raees Khan Jaji to seek support from the Indian board and businesses.

Cricket, like boxing and soccer, is spreading rapidly after suffering for years under the puritanical Taliban regime, but there is hardly any financial support with all government money going into re-building basic infrastructure.

"At least 30,000 people are familiar with cricket and we want to increase this number,' said Noori after a recent meeting with Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) officials.

"If we get facilities, proper equipment and coaching, we can even beat some of the weaker teams that played in this year's World Cup."

DREAMING BIG

Ravaged by relentless fighting among various factions for years, Afghanistan is still known mainly for its traditional game of buzkashi -- involving two teams of horsemen fighting over the carcass of a freshly-beheaded goat.

Cricket was introduced in the early 1990s but its progress was disrupted by the political turmoil in the country.

For five years from 1996, sports suffered under the Taliban which prohibited anything it saw as un-Islamic and directed male players to sport beards and banned women from sport altogether.

But Noori and Jaji, a batsman, who both played in a friendly which Afghanistan lost to the International Security Assistance Force last year, are confident that assistance from established cricketing nations can transform the game in their country.

"Inshallah (God willing), we will play the next World Cup (in 2007)," said an ambitious Jaji.

Around Kabul, it is common to see children playing rubber-ball cricket on makeshift grounds with bricks for stumps. The ACF has been encouraged after being made an affiliate member of the International Cricket Council (ICC) in 2001.

EARLY SUPPORT

The first help came from the England Cricket Board which donated an artificial pitch, scoreboard and bats and balls. The BCCI has promised a match against an India "A" side this year.

"The BCCI has also assured us help to set up a ground in Kabul and arrange a coach for the national team," said Noori.

Noori is encouraging more youth to take up the game which he started playing in refugee camps in Pakistan in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

"We Afghanis are sturdy people and would produce great fast bowlers," said Noori, whose family runs a carpet and export business in Kabul.

Noori also had a brush with the Taliban authority, narrowly escaping punishment for having a team photograph taken.

"The Taliban sports minister said taking pictures of people was un-Islamic and threatened to arrest me. I had to flee to Pakistan with my family," he said.