In November 2020, the Afghanistan Cricket Board (ACB) held a women’s cricket trial in Kabul and agreed that a total of 25 women will get contracts by the board. The Afghanistan women’s team was set to play a series against Oman as their first assignment. Unfortunately, it never happened as nine months later, the Taliban took over in Afghanistan saw girls and women get deprived from most areas of ife, including sports.
In the recently-concluded T20 World Cup, the Afghanistan team made headlines. They beat the likes of New Zealand and Australia and played in a World Cup semi-final for the very first time in history. Rashid Khan’s men had an amazing campaign and if anything, it motivated their female counterparts.
A total of seventeen players who were contracted by the ACB board requested ICC to assist them in setting up and building a refugee team based in Australia.
The players wrote to ICC’s chairperson Greg Barclay, asking for “support and guidance” from the sport’s governing body in order to build and strengthen their team.
“We, the formerly contracted players of the Afghanistan Women’s team, are proud and excited by the achievements of Afghanistan at the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup, and wish to congratulate Rashid Khan and his team on reaching the semi-finals. “A profound sadness remains that we, as women, cannot represent our country like the male cricketers.” extracted from the letter by Afghanistan women.
All the Test playing nations have built up their women teams and frequently series take place among the teams. Recently, England women and New Zealand women are playing a series. The South Africa and India team are preparing for the T20i series, and the Asian sides are gearing up for the upcoming Asia Cup set to begin on 19th of July. And Afghanistan women team slowly and steadily taking a first-step into the right direction.
Currently a significant number of Afghanistan women players are living in Australia and playing for local clubs. And currently ICC cannot offer them official status as it’s the board’s responsibility to compile and form a team. The women team understand these issues and thereby asked for a “refugee team” status from the ICC.
“We want to recruit and train girls and women who love cricket to show the world the talent of Afghan women, and to demonstrate the great victories they can achieve if given a chance through the leadership and financial support of the ICC. Our goals in having a refugee team are to develop and showcase our talent, give hope to the women remaining in Afghanistan, and to draw attention to the challenges women of Afghanistan face,” the letter said. “Like the Afghanistan men’s team, we aim to compete at the highest levels. We want to recruit and train girls and women who love cricket to show the world the talent of Afghan women, and to demonstrate the great victories they can achieve if given a chance through the leadership and financial support of the ICC.”
a piece taken from the letter mentioned above.
However, ICC is yet to respond to this special request made by the Afghanistan women team.
