I have just returned home from Shapoor Zadran's grave, and I cannot accept the fact that it is really my friend who lies in it. My heart refuses to accept it. People come into this world to depart it. But some deaths leave you shattered.
Thousands had gathered for his Fateha (prayer) on Friday at the Eid Gah, the biggest mosque in Kabul. It was an emotional gathering and people could not hold back their tears. People from all walks of life were there. Even former president Mr Hamid Karzai and current minister of Islamic government Mr Siraj ud din Haqqani attended his Fateha.
People of Afghanistan love cricketers because of their services for the country and an air of sorrow has been hanging over all of the country since his passing. These are the days of sadness. People have been consoling me, saying they cannot fathom what I - a close friend - must be going through, given the impact Shapoor's untimely passing has had on everyone.
Shapoor and I were brothers, not just friends. I had known him for the last 24 years. We used to share everything with each other. Even things that we could not tell our actual brothers. We played together for Afghanistan and lived close to each other here in Kabul, and would meet every second day. Shapoor never called anyone 'captain', but me. He was a clever and witty person, but more importantly, he had a big heart.
I vividly remember my first meeting with Shapoor in Peshawar back in 2002. He was very slim at that time and was extremely tall. He was a shy person. He had yellow-coloured trousers, which were too short for his long legs and we used to make fun of it. It used to be a struggle for him to get trousers of his size. Mohammad Shahzad and I teased him a lot throughout our playing days, but he never said anything to us.
He used to stammer a lot back in those days. Since we were not sensible enough - as we must have been around 15 - we used to pick on him for it. He never said anything in return, but settled the scores in the nets.
He was quite strong even back then and would hurl bouncers at us with the new ball on the cemented pitches. Shapoor and I, along with Nawroz Mangal, played for the Zeb club in Peshawar, and that is where our bond got stronger.
Back in those days, there were no cricket facilities in Afghanistan, so we used to travel to Peshawar, especially in winter. The snow and freezing temperatures back in Kabul made cricket impossible in the winter months. We curated a pitch in Chaman-e-Hozori in Kabul, but it used to remain under snow for three to four months, so it was either Peshawar or Delhi as the options for us to play cricket in those months.
Peshawar was more affordable because of its proximity and there was not very strict passport control at the Torkham border in those days. That everyone was Pathan in Peshawar and spoke the same language as us was also helpful. Alamzeb, who owned the Zeb club, was a generous man and he never took any money from us to play at his club. He would not even take the ground rent for the matches.
Shapoor nurtured his talent with sheer hard work. He used to be very focused and dead serious when bowling in the nets and would often say that a tall bowler must bowl at a good pace. He used to bowl tirelessly with the older ball in the nets to increase his speed. His dedication got him selected for Afghanistan in late 2002, just six months after he started to practice with the hard ball. I debuted for Afghanistan two years after him.
"Even in his last days, he would hide his pain to make us feel better. He would laugh to make us feel better, but we knew how dire his situation was because we were aware of his reports"
We played almost all our international cricket together and I got to captain him. One of my tasks was to manage his long run-up. He used to take seven minutes to complete an over and I would tell him he cannot take more than five minutes. I would often tease him that he has to do additional sessions if he doesn't complete his five overs inside 25 minutes during the sessions.
It was difficult to face him in the nets. His short balls were menacing and he would target our ribs. He often overstepped to add more speed on them, so nobody would hit him in the nets. But he could not steal those yards in the practice or scenario matches, so we used to attack him there. Shapoor used to remind us of the upcoming net sessions when we hit him, so we would offer him a truce, saying: "We will go easy on you here and you go easy on us there."
Shapoor was a true fighter. I remember we were playing against Ireland in Sharjah in 2017 and we desperately needed Shapoor to play that game. The team's physio had ruled him out of the match because he had developed corns and calluses under his foot and he was in immense pain. Playing in Sharjah's heat in such a condition is no joke. Along with that he had also developed a minor tear in his knee. He took a painkiller and played.
After Shapoor was admitted to the hospital, I told him that the injections would cause severe pain in his body, and he replied, "But they cannot be more painful than that spell in Sharjah."
You will find Shapoor Zadran's imprint in every major milestone of Afghanistan cricket, whether it was our maiden World Cup win against Scotland in 2015 or his spell on our debut at Lord's. It is a testimony of the dedication with which he has served Afghanistan cricket.
He had drawn plans to develop cricket in Afghanistan, and despite being in immense pain in his last days, he was concerned about the future of the game in our country. He would talk about how we could improve the state of cricket in Afghanistan despite being in the last stage of Hemophagocytic Lymphohistiocytosis. Such was his passion for cricket.
It reminds me of one particular incident from 2003. Back in those days, football was more popular than cricket in Afghanistan, and people would not empty the ground for us to play cricket. It led to a fight. We were ten people - which included Mangal, Mohammad Nabi, Karim Sadiq, Haseebullah, Raees Ahmadzai, Dawlat Ahmadzai, and Hamid Hasan - and they were around 50-60. Those who fought Shapoor ran off because of what he did to them. But we got beaten.
He cared for people around him and even in his last days, he would hide his pain to make us feel better. He would laugh to make us feel better, but we knew how dire his situation was because we were aware of his reports. At times, even doctors were stunned by how he was alive. They used to transfuse blood into him every two days to bring the white blood cells and platelets back to their levels, but they would have fallen drastically by the next day. But my friend never gave up the fight. He was not the one to accept defeat.
I spent most of the last six months with Shapoor and we grew closer during this time. He would get restless if I had to come back to Afghanistan, so I flew back and forth frequently. When we went to India to have him admitted to the hospital for the first time, Shapoor told me he had unbearable pain in his legs and he felt like he was walking on nails. He could barely walk at that time. He used to have bouts of high fever.
He recovered initially and the doctors said he could return to cricket in three months. Shapoor even began working on his fitness, but then he had a bout of food poisoning, which reversed all the progress. He showed progress twice more, but slipped into a coma the last time his health deteriorated. I last spoke to him 15 days before his death, as that was the last time he could talk.
July 7, 2026, was the worst day of my life. I was in Dubai when I got to know about his passing. I went there to submit my passport for a visa. I withdrew my passport to travel to Kabul for his final rites. They told me there could be complications in the visa process because of it, but I would not have missed being with Shapoor at that time for anything. There were thousands at the airport to receive him, which underscored the profound impact he has left on each Afghan's life.
But this is the Will of Allah, and we accept it. We will now live with Shapoor's memories.
As told to Ahsan Iftikhar Nagi