Dignity and humanity of Afghan women should be worth more than cricket | Cricket

THere are all the types of lines you can draw. We have drawn a line. That's what Mike Baird, the chairman of Cricket Australia, explained last month when explaining the governing body's position on playing Afghanistan, the country that has just banned women from looking out of windows.

According to a new decree by the Taliban government, no new buildings can be built with windows through which women can be seen. Existing buildings with windows must be walled or covered. Seeing women working in kitchens, courtyards or collecting water from wells can lead to obscene acts, said Zabihullah Mujahid, a government spokesman.

Currently, Cricket Australia, like the England and Wales Cricket Board, is refusing to schedule bilateral series against Afghanistan due to concerns over the deterioration of basic human rights for women in Afghanistan. But, confusingly, both countries are more than happy to play them in global competitions: Australia in last year's Twenty20 World Cup, England in next month's Champions Trophy.

Which, no matter how you put it, is a strangely precise place to draw your moral line. Our care for the women and girls in Afghanistan apparently starts with 1.5 cricket matches. Two or more games at once: an unconscionable act of conspiracy in a murderous, misogynistic, medieval death cult. Less than two: okay guys, keep going.

At this point we encounter the ambiguity and realpolitik of the cricket establishment, which argues against a sporting boycott of Afghanistan on the grounds that it would destroy the hope and joy that the men's team has generated over the past twenty years, while leaving little tangible benefit would result. .

I don't think it would make a big difference to the ruling party there to kick them out, outgoing International Cricket Council chairman Greg Barclay said last month. That, you have to say, is a pretty high bar for sports activism. Fair enough, wave your banners. But until you are actually able to literally overthrow the Taliban, stop wasting our time.

We are warned not to punish the richly gifted men's team for the sins of their government, as if the dignity and humanity of twenty million Afghan women were simply tolerable collateral damage against the broader backdrop of Rashid Khan's availability for the next T20 World Cup. We are reminded that Afghanistan had little culture of women's cricket before 2021 anyway, with the implication that wiping out an entire international team is not, in principle, a great loss in the grand scheme of things.

To be blessed with this kind of good-natured adult wisdom! And yet, even if this argument is taken on its own terms, it is subjected to greater pressure than it can even remotely handle. The existence of the men's team, virtually the only representative side to receive official blessing, is sufficient proof of its propaganda value.

High-ranking Taliban officials have posted photos with the team on official occasions, called senior players to congratulate them after victories, and allowed matches to be shown on large screens in public parks to appreciative male audiences. This is politics: how can it not be? Cricket is particularly popular among the young Pashtun men who form the backbone of the Taliban's appeal. This is the only reason the nice police have allowed it to continue: this team is now essentially a customer outfit, a PR offensive, a form of cricket diplomacy.

And of course the easy targets here are the empty shirts at the ECB, Cricket Australia and the ICC, caught between two forms of compensatory cowardice. Canceling a loss-making bilateral tour costs nothing. Boycotting a major tournament game has significant implications for broadcasters, sponsors and future commercial value.

But of course the ICC is now effectively an events management company, a governing body that has largely abandoned governance. The ECB and Cricket Australia are peripheral figures here, only underlined by the response from former CEO, Richard Gouldto calls for a complete boycott. The focus on this issue, as with almost everything in cricket these days, is in India. And so the relevant question here is not so much what should be done, but rather: what is the realistic range of possibilities that Jay Shah, the new ICC chairman and acolyte of Narendra Modi, will make happen?

Officially, the Modi government does not recognize the new Afghan regime. In reality, there has been a pragmatic rapprochement in recent years, despite the cultural and religious differences between the two countries. Diplomatic ties were restored in June 2022. Meanwhile, the Afghan embassy in Delhi and its two consulates in Mumbai and Hyderabad are said to have quietly come under the control of pro-Taliban officials.

Driven by an ever-present fear of Chinese influence, and encouraged by a slight freeze in relations with Pakistan, the Modi government has seen an opportunity to build bridges. Of course, cricket has played a prominent role in diplomatic relations: Afghanistan plays its home games in Greater Noida, just outside Delhi, India invited them for a white-ball series in January, and when Afghanistan played the semi-finals of the T20 World Cup last summer reached they issued a statement thanking India for their continued assistance in capacity building of the Afghan cricket team.

And so, if India is overly disturbed by the disappearance of women's rights under the Taliban, let's just say it's not immediately apparent. Afghan players continue to man the Indian Premier League. Afghan men's teams remain welcome to tour India, use Indian facilities and tap into Indian expertise. Afghanistan's economy has collapsed since 2021 and is in dire need of new trade partnerships. Anyone want to connect the dots here?

None of this is an argument against the power of the sports boycott. But focusing on unilateral gestures at the expense of collective action essentially means acquiescing to the status quo. As we oppose the misogyny of the Iron Age Taliban, we must also oppose the structures of capitalist power that keep them in place, from the commercial cowardice of sports administrators to the cynical complicity of the Modi government. Too many? Too difficult? Too radical? Then, like the factotums running the game, you've chosen to draw your line in an entirely pragmatic place.

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