Afghan refugees bat for recognition and women’s rights in Melbourne match

A few miles from the Melbourne Cricket Ground where Australia and England started the women’s Ashes test on Thursday, a group of Afghan refugee cricketers played their first match as a team since fleeing Taliban rule.

The players of the Afghanistan Women’s XI were among hundreds of athletes who fled their home nation when the Taliban returned to power in 2021, bringing sweeping restrictions on women.

Of the 25 Afghan women contracted by the country’s cricket board in 2020, most resettled in Australia with humanitarian visas, starting new lives in Melbourne and other cities.

While Afghanistan has an established men’s team and enjoys funding from the International Cricket Council (ICC), the women are unfunded and unsanctioned by the global body despite pleas for support from the players.

Their exhibition match at the Junction Oval on Thursday against a team arranged by Cricket Without Borders, a non-profit supporting women cricketers, was facilitated by Cricket Australia and carried no status.

Still, captain Nahida Sapan said it should give hope to women in Afghanistan where sport has been disbanded and girls are banned from secondary education.

“It means a lot for Afghan women, because with this, they can hope, we can hope,” Sapan said before the game.

“Actually, we have big hope from this match because this match can open doors for Afghan women for education, sport and the future.”

The players wore blue shirts designed for the match with a logo featuring a cricket ball and a tulip, Afghanistan’s national flower.

But it was not a national uniform and did not feature Afghanistan’s flag or its colours.

Afghanistan have been allowed to retain ICC membership, despite not fulfilling the requirement to commit to developing women’s cricket.

Australia and other countries refuse to play the Afghanistan men’s team in bilateral series on moral grounds, citing deteriorating human rights for women in Afghanistan.

The Afghan women based in Australia have asked the ICC to recognise them as a refugee team but have had no formal response.

The ICC told Reuters this month that it was “committed to leveraging (its) influence constructively” to support the Afghanistan Cricket Board (ACB) in ensuring playing opportunities for both men and women.

Cricket Australia says its hopes the Afghan women can play more exhibition matches and one day play on the international stage.

The Afghanistan men’s team will soon feature in the Champions Trophy, a one-day international competition featuring the game’s major powers to be held in Pakistan and United Arab Emirates next month.

The Afghanistan Women’s XI players will return to playing for local cricket clubs in Australia and hope the exhibition match will have been noted by the game’s global administrators.

“It’s good to see us still being represented,” Tuba Sangar, a former women’s cricket administrator in Afghanistan, told Reuters.

“We hope this will create more opportunity and just be the beginning.”

Header image: Afghanistan Women’s XI players huddle before the cricket match between Afghanistan Women’s XI and Cricket Without Borders XI at Junction Oval in Melbourne on January 30. — AFP