"Khaled Tyrtysh, Saturday"

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A champion buzkashi player has apologised for a loss of concentration that may have cost his side the Mazar-i-Sharif Champions Trophy on the weekend.

Khaled Tyrtysh said the lapse at a crucial stage of the match was down to his having become distracted by one of the fundamental elements of his sport.

“It was the third quarter, which they don’t call the Uday Khan quarter for nothing,’ Tyrtysh told thebladder.com.

“I pounced on the goat carcass and slung it across the neck of my horse.

“Then I got the whip between my teeth, dug in my heels and galloped for the circle of justice. No problems so far – and as any professional chapandaz will tell you, this is exactly the point when you’d never normally zone out.

“But as I thundered on, with the crowd ahead of me going absolutely bananas, I glanced down at the battered goat carcass balanced on my horse’s neck. And I suddenly found myself thinking, ‘Where the fuck is its head?’.”

“There’s hair, there are tiny cleated hooves,” Tyrtysh said. “It still smells and pretty much still looks like a goat, at least until the second or third day of competition. So why doesn’t it have a head?

“It’s not like not having one makes it any less goatlike.”

Tyrtysh said he took full responsibility for the loss of concentration, which saw him plough past the circle of justice into a section of the crowd. He had to be helped out of a pile of bodies and into a recovery yurt, where he was found holding one of next week’s goats in front of him and muttering “it’s freaking headless”.

Tyrtysh’s team, the Herat Alliance, went on to lose to cross-town rivals Heratiban on penalty goats.

“I’ll probably have to go back and play a couple of weeks in the Qarajai after this,” Tyrtysh said after the match.