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		</div><p><a href="http://londonglossy.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/battlefield-now-a-cricket-pitch.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-full" title="Sergeant Trevor McDowell demonstrating cricket to local children" src="http://londonglossy.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/min-battlefield-now-a-cricket-pitch.jpg" alt="Sergeant Trevor McDowell demonstrating cricket to local children"/></a></p>
<p>A British soldier has helped transform a battlefield in Afghanistan into a pitch for the most tranquil of sports &#8211; cricket.</p>
<p>Sergeant Trevor McDowell, a Territorial Army soldier deployed in Nad-e Ali with the 1st Battalion The Royal Irish Regiment, turned a piece of farmland which was once a combat zone into a cricket pitch where locals regularly compete against each other.</p>
<p>The Shingul area was known as a hotspot for Taliban activity and members of the Shropshire-based Royal Irish were forced to engage in combat regularly with enemy fighters.</p>
<p>But after their counter-insurgency campaign, carried out alongside members of the Afghan National Army (ANA), the area is no longer a battleground.</p>
<p>Sgt McDowell, 40, from east Belfast, decided to donate cricket gear to villagers after witnessing locals using makeshift equipment to play a game similar to rounders.</p>
<p>After the kit was handed over to village elders, the British and Afghan troops staged a quick match between themselves to ensure locals were clear on the complex rules of the game.</p>
<p>Sgt McDowell said: &#8220;We knew that our efforts had transformed the local area and brought normality to the people when our patrols witnessed locals playing stick and ball games on previously contested ground.</p>
<p>&#8220;These games, and the relaxed posture of the locals, were a clear sign of success and proof of what can be achieved with security.</p>
<p>&#8220;I was really pleased to obtain and distribute the cricket gear with my ANA colleagues. In the future, I hope all Afghan children feel safe enough to laugh and play in the way they now can here.</p>
<p>&#8220;Sometimes it&#8217;s the smallest things that make this job worthwhile. Seeing soldiers teaching Afghan children cricket and then walking away, letting the children&#8217;s fathers and the village elder carry on while we quietly observed in the background, was a great feeling &#8211; particularly knowing what this area was like not very long ago.&#8221;</p>
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