Shikaeb Rahi Soratgar, 21, drives to the basket during a pick up game at the National Olympic Center gymnasium in Kabul on July 7, 2013. Shikaeb is the captain of the Afghan National Basketball team, as well as his club team, and is considered the best basketball player in Afghanistan.
Victor J. Blue for The Daily Beast
The team works out in the evenings at the Afghan National Olympic Center, a run down complex in Kabul. Old fluorescent lights flicker as the power goes in and out and the concrete floor is scuffed and chipped from years of use. But Shikaeb dominates the pick up games, driving to the lane, sinking three pointers, faking out guards.
Victor J. Blue for The Daily Beast
Shikaeb talks with fellow players during a pick up game. He's only 6 feet tall, but he can dunk. He’s got a calm, even personality, but he’s a fierce competitor, arguing calls and fighting for rebounds.
A pair of worn basketball shoes sit on a shelf at the National Olympic Center gymnasium.
Shikaeb lives the life of a cosmopolitan Kabuli, an existence that was once hard to imagine after the last 30 years marked by war in Afghanistan. He bounces around town in a red Corolla, the the emblematic, and almost only, make of car in the country, spending time with his friends and working out.
He plays snooker at local pool halls.
Shikaeb gets in some exercise after having a guitar lesson.
An elderly man walks past a basketball court on the grounds of the Kabul Education University in Kabul. Recent efforts to rename the university after former Afghan president Burhanuddin Rabbani caused violent protests by students and supporters of the slain leader.
Victor J. Blue for The Daily Beast
Nafisa Ahmadi, shoots hoops during practice for her women's basketball team at a Red Crescent center in Kabul. In his spare time Shikaeb coaches a girls basketball team one of about 15 girls teams in the country. In a deep red gym, with a wooden floor and a big red crescent painted over the backboard on either end. He puts the girls through some drills, helps with their shooting, and then referees their scrimmages.
A ball sinks in a hoop at the National Olympic Center.
Like any young player, his dream is to play for a college team, to play with better players, to progress. For him of course this would mean leaving Afghanistan, at a time when visas for Afghans to travel to the west are almost impossible to obtain.
For Shikaeb, as for the rest of Afghanistan, the future is uncertain. As NATO troops pull out of the country and western powers tire of the aid mission there, the country faces a deepening insurgency and fears of future civil war.
