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Afghanistan had no national cricket team 12 years ago. Now the side is preparing to take on the "big boys" at next year's Cricket World Cup. Fairfax Media talks to the captain and coach about the growth of the sport in the war-torn country.

It all started, for Mohammad Nabi with cricket played with a tennis ball in the dusty lanes of a Peshawar refugee camp.

A strapping, swashbuckling middle order batter, watching him slice boundaries at Mt Maunganui's Bay Oval this week, it is hard to reconcile with the earlier image.

But it has taken a couple of decades, and a lot of hard work, for the 29-year-old to get to this position as he sets out to captain Afghanistan to its first Cricket World Cup.

Nabi, the charismatic leader of the firebrand team, is at the forefront of building the sport in his country.

He can't walk down the streets of Kabul without being mobbed by fans and he has more than 160,000 followers on Facebook.

Yet just 12 years ago there was no national team. In fact, cricket was barely thought about with football dominating the minds of the sporting public.

In a sign of how far things have come, Nabi - in fact, the entire team - have the support of the new Afghan President Ashraf Ghani. Even the Taliban endorsed cricket as a game that is lifting the spirits of a nation.

The Afghanistan Cricket Federation (now Afghanistan Cricket Board) was formed in 1995 and became an affiliate member of the ICC in 2001, the same time the national team was formed.

The country became an associate member of the ICC in 2013 and last year was the second of the four qualifier nations to secure a spot in the 2015 tournament co-hosted by New Zealand and Australia.

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Afghanistan a nation passionate about cricket