Out of the Ashes – review

Here is an amiable, good-natured heartwarmer of a documentary, accessible to cricket fans and non-fans alike. Last year, Afghanistan's national cricket team made its plucky if somewhat chaotic attempt to compete in the 2011 World Cup. The movie shows the players travelling to Jersey for the first qualifier – a landscape as remote as the moon – and things get tense when the team suffers a batting collapse on the first day. There's an eruption of temper from an outgoing batsman, run out by his incautious partner: "Why did you send me to play with a fucking bisexual?" he yells to the team coach, a dedicated amateur who later finds himself hurtfully sacked in favour of a professional when the Afghan side starts looking successful. This movie is a valuable way of deparochialising Afghanistan, showing that it can be understood in ways that have nothing to do with TV news cliches.