All smiles: The Afghanistan cricket team trains at Manuka      Oval on Thursday. Photo: Graham Tidy    
    Born and raised in a refugee camp on the Pakistan border,    Afghanistan cricket captain Mohammad Nabi is now treated like a    rockstar.  
    Nabi will lead his team out against the ACT Comets at Manuka    Oval on Friday, in the first of two one-day games as part of    the war-torn country's Cricket World Cup preparations; the    second game is on Sunday.  
    Like many of his teammates, Nabi grew up outside Afghanistan,    after his parents fled the war against the Soviet Union to    Peshawar, on the border of neighbouring Pakistan.  
    It was there he learnt cricket, playing with local children and    using a battered tennis ball.  
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    Not surprisingly, life was tough in the refugee camp  living    in tents without clean water and hardly any    food.But slowly things improved for the now    29-year-old and they moved into housing in Peshawar, before    eventually moving back to his parents' native    Afghanistan.  
    "The refugee camps are not so good  there is no clean water,    no proper house to live, it's a quite tough life at that time    ... but we have problems back home in Afghanistan," Nabi said.  
    "There's nothing good to eat, no good drinking water as well,    and no good clothes or shoes, quite difficult life at that    time, but after a few years we came out of the refugee camp."  
    Now he is one of 40 contracted Afghanistan    players.While their facilities are not the best     Afghanistan coach Andy Moles described the pitches as rolled    mud  they can earn a decent living to support themselves and    their families.  
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Afghanistan prepares for Cricket World Cup in Canberra