They call it buzbashi, and it hasn't been played for years in Afghanistan, where the Taliban frown on what had been the national sport. Buzbashi is a kind of polo, in which a whole bunch of ferocious guys armed with whips lean off their horses and try to snatch a dead calf or goat. On Wednesday, troops of the Northern Alliance played the game in Gulbahar before hundreds of excited spectators. "Earlier this would have been impossible for us to do, because the Taliban could have bombed us, but now we are able and that makes us extremely happy," said Bur Habib, local commander of the Northern Alliance and a participant himself. "I wanted our troops to enjoy themselves and thought this would be a good way of boosting morale." Sports in general have not fared well in Afganistan. Earlier this year, Pakistan sent its soccer team to Kabul for a match as a peace gesture. Taliban head Sheikh Omar was so offended by their uniforms (shorts cut above the knee) that he halted the match and had the Pakistanis flogged and their heads shaved while the crowd chanted verses from the Koran.