Afghanistan women's cricket future once again hinges on men's wrestling | Cricket

TThe stop-start or start-stop saga of the Afghanistan women’s cricket team has been on the ICC’s to-do list since the Taliban returned to power in August 2021. It’s not a simple issue, but no one can say it’s at the top of the pile, with the governing body largely relying on procedure to explain its slow moves.

A brief history: The Taliban took over and violently and immediately wiped out the development of the nascent women’s team. The players had only been signed in November 2020 and had yet to play a competitive match. The players and their families were immediately intimidated. Many went home and burned and hid their equipment for fear of being discovered. They fled across the border to Pakistan and 22 of the 25 were given emergency visas to Australia (two others went to Canada and one to the UK).

From there, the majority settled in Melbourne, where they had to start their lives over with minimal resources to study, learn English, find work and, if time allowed, play cricket for local clubs. They felt forgotten. In November 2022, they wrote to the ICC seeking clarification on their status: Could you please state the official position on our national playing contracts and future playing opportunities, noting that we no longer live in Afghanistan? But nothing has changed.

So, almost three years after their flight, and with the Afghan men’s team in the spotlight after triumphantly reaching the semi-finals of the T20 World Cup, they wrote again, on June 29. This time an open letter to ICC chairman Greg Barclay, asking whether the ICC would support the establishment of a refugee exile team in Australia, managed by the East Asian Cricket Office, based at Cricket Australia’s headquarters. The letter congratulated Rashid Khan’s team on their success, before continuing:

A deep sadness remains that we, as women, cannot represent our country like the male cricketers. Creating a team of Afghan refugees can give us the opportunity to play, coach and manage a cricket team without borders. The creation of this team will bring all Afghan women who want to represent their country together under one banner. Our goals with a refugee team are to develop and showcase our talent, give hope to the women who remain in Afghanistan and draw attention to the challenges faced by the women of Afghanistan. Just as the Afghan men’s team is provided, we aim to compete at the highest level. We want to recruit and train girls and women who love cricket, show the world the talent of Afghan women and the great victories they can achieve if given an opportunity through the leadership and financial structure of the ICC.

Once again, the women have not received a response, although it is believed the issue will be discussed at the next ICC meeting later this month. And Barclay hinted at the MCC's World Cricket Connect conference (as reported by Isabelle Westbury) that things might change if Cricket Australia came to them with a proposal.

Alison Mitchell is the journalist who has kept her ear closest to the ground for this story, keeping in touch with a number of players while in Melbourne and interviewing them for 7Cricket. She also had a rare chance to question the ICC on the matter in November 2023 when she spoke to the organisation’s CEO, Geoff Allardice, for the BBC World Service programme Stumped.

Geoff said the ICC’s mandate is that we don’t take players from any country without the blessing of the governing body in that area, Mitchell said. But the women are no longer contracted to the Afghanistan Cricket Board, they are no longer recognised by them or have any contact with them. They are not living in Afghanistan. There is no reason for the ICC not to respond to the back of this letter asking for a refugee team. An unprecedented situation requires an unprecedented solution.

The International Olympic Committee’s response for the upcoming Paris Olympics is to invite a team of three male and three female Afghan athletes to the Olympics (the Taliban only recognizes the three male athletes). They will compete under the red-green-black Afghan flag of the previous Western-backed government.

The request for a refugee team gives the ICC some wiggle room. The ICC's full membership criteria include that countries must have a sustained and sufficient pool of players to support a strong and consistent national-level selection for the men's senior, men's U19 and women's teams, and that they must (a) have competed in at least one (1) ICC Womens Cricket World Cup or ICC Womens T20 World Cup in the past four (4) years or (b) currently feature on the ICC's official women's ODI rankings. Afghanistan does not meet any of those criteria, but still remains a full member and receives full funding. A refugee team would ensure that Afghanistan women's cricket has a beating heart and could rightly receive a share of their central funding (although Barclay has indicated that this is unlikely.

When the ICC discusses the situation of women in Colombo at their annual conference, a representative of the Afghanistan Cricket Board will sit at the table with the other delegates.

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The Afghanistan men’s set-up has received considerable help from cricket’s premier power, the BCCI, over the years. The Shaheed Vijay Singh Pathik Sports Complex in Greater Noida was the team’s first temporary home ground in 2015, and they have also played matches at Lucknow’s Ekana Stadium. The BCCI provided a $1 million grant for the construction of the stadium in Kandahar and hosted Afghanistan’s first Test match in 2018, while the IPL has been a theatre for a pipeline of talented young Afghan players.

We are grateful for India’s continued help in building the capacity of the Afghan cricket team. We really appreciate it, Taliban political office chief Suhail Shaheen told World In One News (WION) after Afghanistan qualified for the semi-finals. The BCCI has also, albeit belatedly, thrown its weight behind the establishment of the hugely successful WPL.

With BCCI secretary Jay Shah interested in running in the ICC presidential election due to be held in November, and Cricbuzz reporting that he would be elected unopposed if he decided to run, the future of the Afghanistan women’s team once again appears to rest on the political will and geopolitical wrangling of the men in the boardrooms. And in the meantime, the clock is ticking.