Lionel Messi seeks to meet Afghan boy who was wearing a plastic jersey

February 2, 2016

Kabul, Feb 2: Barcelona star Lionel Messi is hoping to arrange a meeting with an Afghan boy who shot to fame after pictures of him dressed in a striped plastic bag jersey went viral, Kabul's football federation said on Monday.

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Five-year-old Murtaza Ahmadi idolises the Argentine soccer star but a jersey of his favourite player is beyond the means of his poor family in the volatile province of Ghazni near Kabul.

His elder brother Homayoun, 15, made him the blue-and-white-striped plastic shirt with Messi's named scrawled in marker pen and posted the photos of Murtaza wearing it on Facebook in mid-January.

Jorge Messi, Lionel's father, told AFP on Saturday that the footballer was aware of the photos that made waves on social media and "wants to do something" for his young fan.

The Afghanistan Football Federation (AFF) on Monday said Messi was keen to meet Murtaza as soon as possible, though no date or venue has so far been finalised.

"Messi has been in communication with the federation to set up a meeting with the young boy," AFF spokesman Sayed Ali Kazemi told AFP. "We are working to see whether Messi will come to Afghanistan or the five-year-old will travel to Spain or they will meet in a third country."

There was no immediate comment from FC Barcelona.

Setting up a meeting in Afghanistan, in the grip of a fierce Taliban insurgency, is fraught with security challenges. The Spanish embassy in Kabul told AFP it would do whatever possible to facilitate a meeting in a European destination.

Murtaza's father, a poor farmer in Ghazni's Jaghori district, admitted he could not afford to buy him a replica jersey, adding that Murtaza only had a punctured ball to play with.

Photos of the boy wearing the improvised Messi jersey -- made from grocery bags discarded by their neighbour -- has touched a chord with football fans around the world.

Sport was rarely played under Taliban rule, and the football stadium in Kabul was a notorious venue for executions, stonings and mutilations.

Football and cricket are the two most popular sports in the war-ravaged country.

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Nadine
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Sunday, 4 Jun 2017

One more book suggestion; just got done checking out \The Snowball\"-- the
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News Network
April 5,2020

New Delhi, April 5: England batsman James Vince lashed out at people for not taking proper measures to contain the spread of the coronavirus pandemic and said people are going out as if "everything is normal".

"Just seen the pictures of people out and about today as if everything is normal. What selfish people, surely by now they've realised this is serious. Well done to everyone who's doing their bit and staying in," Vince tweeted.

On March 13, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said that Europe was now the 'epicentre' of the disease.

The death toll due to the novel coronavirus in the UK has exceeded 4,313 with at least 708 new deaths in the last 24 hours, the largest one-day rise since the start of the outbreak as confirmed by the Department of Health and Social Care.

The total number of cases in the UK as on Saturday is 41,903, a rise of 3,735 cases in the last 24 hours.

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News Network
April 7,2020

London, Apr 7: Bowling coach Waqar Younis feels that it was the absence of pacers Wahab Riaz and Mohammad Amir which saw Pakistan getting whitewashed during Australia tour last year.

Amir and Riaz had quit the red-ball format ahead of the matches against Australia in 2019.

"Just before the Australia series, they ditched us and we had the only choice to pick youngsters.

We were the new management and decided to go on with taking in the younger lot and groom them. ESPNcricinfo quoted Younis as saying.

Pakistan was not able to win a single match in Australia as they got defeated both in T20Is and Test series.

"It's not like we have lost a lot, but yes they left us at the wrong time. But anyway, we don't have any grudge against them," Younis added.

"We cannot control players' choice on what they want to play, but then there should be a mechanism so we all are on board. "It's not like I am saying we could have won in Australia but we could have done better than what we have done," he opined.

Amir gave up the red ball format in July in order to manage his workload and extend his white-ball career for Pakistan as well as in T20 leagues around the world, while Riaz took an "indefinite break" from Test cricket in September last year.

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News Network
January 15,2020

Dubai, Jan 15: India skipper and batting mainstay Virat Kohli was on Wednesday named captain of the International Cricket Council's ODI and Test teams of the year, capping off a memorable season for the world No.1.

Apart from Kohli, there were four other Indians who were picked in the ICC's Test and ODI Teams of the Year.

While the Test team featured double-centurion Mayank Agarwal, opener Rohit Sharma, speedster Mohammed Shami and left-arm spinner Kuldeep Yadav found a place in the ODI side.

Kohli enjoyed a tremendous run in both the formats in 2019. The 31-year-old hit his seventh Test double hundred on the way to a career-best unbeaten 254 against South Africa in October last year.

It was a breakthrough year for opener Agarwal, who smashed two double tons, one century and went beyond the fifty-run mark twice. He hit a career-best score of 243 against Bangladesh in November.

Kuldeep, too, enjoyed a memorable year as he joined the golden list of bowlers with two hat-tricks. The chinaman claimed his second ODI hat-trick of his career against the West Indies last month.

In the absence of Indian pace spearhead Jasprit Bumrah, Shami rose to the occasion making the best in the business hop, skip and jump with his pace, swing and bounce through the season. He scalped 42 wickets in 21 ODIs over the last 12 months.

The ICC's Teams of the Year 2019:

ODI Team of the Year (in batting order): Rohit Sharma, Shai Hope, Virat Kohli (captain), Babar Azam, Kane Williamson, Ben Stokes, Jos Buttler (wicketkeeper), Mitchell Starc, Trent Boult, Mohammed Shami, Kuldeep Yadav

Test Team of the Year (in batting order): Mayank Agarwal, Tom Latham, Marnus Labuschagne, Virat Kohli (captain), Steve Smith, Ben Stokes, BJ Watling (wicketkeeper), Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc, Neil Wagner, Nathan Lyon.

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