Afghanistan’s feminine cricketers reunite for match after 3 years in exile attributable to Taliban ban

Afghanistan’s feminine cricketers reunite for match after 3 years in exile attributable to Taliban ban

Afghan girls cricketers Nahida Sapan, left, and Firooza Amiri communicate to reporters at Junction Oval in Melbourne, Australia, Monday, January 27, 2025
| Photograph Credit score: AP

Cricketer Firooza Amiri says her group will “symbolize thousands and thousands of ladies in Afghanistan who’re denied their rights” when the facet reunites after greater than three years for an exhibition recreation in Australia on Thursday (January 30, 2025).

An Afghanistan Ladies’s XI will play a Cricket With out Borders XI within the match at Melbourne’s Junction Oval. It is going to carry collectively 21 feminine gamers who had been previously contracted by the Afghanistan Cricket Board (ACB) earlier than the Taliban regime re-took management in August 2021.

Since fleeing Afghanistan, the ladies cricketers, banned from taking part in of their house nation, have been primarily based in Canberra and Melbourne and taking part in for varied membership groups in native competitions.

Amiri and Nahida Sapan, who will captain the Afghanistan Ladies’s XI, thanked the Australian authorities and Cricket Australia for his or her assist in selling girls’s sport.

“It’s very particular for all of us to get again collectively after three years, leaving all the things and dropping all the things again house in Afghanistan and are available collectively once more,” Amiri stated this week.

Amiri was compelled to flee her house nation when the Taliban took management. She and her household first traveled to Pakistan after which had been evacuated to Australia.

“I additionally wish to specific deepest gratitude for everybody who assist us. Your assist means the world to us,” Sapan stated. “Collectively we’re constructing not only a group. We’re constructing a motion for change and enchancment.

“It is a very historic second for all of Afghan girls. This match can open doorways for Afghan girls for schooling, sport and our future.”

Sapan informed the BBC in 2023 that her household obtained loss of life threats from authorities officers after the Taliban re-took energy. The threatening messages included: “If we discover you, we won’t allow you to stay.”

Cricket Australia chief govt Nick Hockley praised the resilience of the gamers. He stated it was a robust second once they had been introduced with their group shirts for the exhibition match.

“To see their taking part in shirts for the primary time with their names and numbers on the again, you’ll be able to see how a lot it means to them,” Hockley stated. “I’m simply impressed by their resilience, their love for the sport.”

Hockley stated CA would proceed to “advocate” for change at a world degree by discussions with the Worldwide Cricket Council (ICC). He stated Thursday’s (January 30, 2025) recreation represented an essential first step.

“This match shines the sunshine on the truth that in locations world wide, not each girl and lady has the possibility to play,” Hockley stated. “We proceed to advocate on the ICC and proceed to have interaction with the ACB (Afghanistan Cricket Board).

“It’s such a posh scenario. It’s greater than cricket.”

Beneath Taliban rule, the Afghanistan Cricket Board can not discipline a nationwide girls’s group as a result of the nation’s legal guidelines forbid girls from taking part in sport, learning and medical schooling, strikes which were criticized by world teams together with the Worldwide Felony Courtroom.

Afghanistan is a full member of the ICC and a situation of that standing ought to require it to have a girls’s facet.

England and Australia are refusing to take part in direct collection in opposition to Afghanistan in protest, however proceed to play in opposition to it in ICC occasions, comparable to subsequent month’s Champions Trophy world occasion in Pakistan.

England cricket captain Jos Buttler stated final week that his facet mustn’t boycott a match in opposition to the Afghanistan males’s group when they’re scheduled to play within the Champions Trophy on February 26 in Lahore. South Africa’s Sports activities Minister, nonetheless, has urged the Proteas to boycott their match in opposition to Afghanistan in the identical match.

Requested why Australia was ready to play a males’s recreation in opposition to Afghanistan in an ICC occasion, however not in a bilateral collection, Hockley stated CA was “duty-bound” to play all its scheduled fixtures at ICC occasions.

“We’re actually attempting to do all the things we are able to in our energy to make a distinction,” Hockley stated. “We’ve performed Afghanistan in different ICC occasions. It’s important to draw a line someplace and I feel we’ve made our stance fairly clear.”

Mohammad Nabi and Rashid Khan from Afghanistan’s males’s nationwide cricket group have posted assist for girls’s schooling on social media after the Taliban closed coaching institutes for nursing and midwives.

Hockley stated he hoped Thursday’s (January 30, 2025) match, the format for which was not introduced, would turn into an annual one and that it might “promote numerous conversations.”

“You want moments like this to immediate actual change. The primary piece is consciousness,” Hockley stated. “Hopefully this recreation simply raises consciousness. I feel it’s an actual beacon of hope.”

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