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 workforce will “signify thousands and thousands of ladies in Afghanistan who’re denied their rights” when the aspect reunites after greater than three years for an exhibition sport in Australia on Thursday (January 30, 2025).
An Afghanistan Girls’s XI will play a Cricket With out Borders XI within the match at Melbourne’s Junction Oval. It’s going to deliver 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 residence 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 Girls’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 every thing and dropping every thing again residence in Afghanistan and are available collectively once more,” Amiri stated this week.
Amiri was compelled to flee her residence 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 workforce. We’re constructing a motion for change and enchancment.
“This can be a very historic second for all of Afghan girls. This match can open doorways for Afghan girls for schooling, sport and our future.”
Sapan instructed the BBC in 2023 that her household obtained dying threats from authorities officers after the Taliban re-took energy. The threatening messages included: “If we discover you, we won’t allow you to dwell.”
Cricket Australia chief govt Nick Hockley praised the resilience of the gamers. He stated it was a strong second after they had been introduced with their workforce 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 may 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 stage by way of discussions with the Worldwide Cricket Council (ICC). He stated Thursday’s (January 30, 2025) sport represented an vital first step.
“This match shines the sunshine on the truth that in locations world wide, not each lady and lady has the prospect to play,” Hockley stated. “We proceed to advocate on the ICC and proceed to interact with the ACB (Afghanistan Cricket Board).
“It’s such a posh state of affairs. It’s larger than cricket.”
Beneath Taliban rule, the Afghanistan Cricket Board can not subject a nationwide girls’s workforce as a result of the nation’s legal guidelines forbid girls from taking part in sport, finding out and medical schooling, strikes which have been criticized by world teams together with the Worldwide Legal Court docket.
Afghanistan is a full member of the ICC and a situation of that standing ought to require it to have a girls’s aspect.
England and Australia are refusing to take part in direct collection towards Afghanistan in protest, however proceed to play towards it in ICC occasions, reminiscent of subsequent month’s Champions Trophy international occasion in Pakistan.
England cricket captain Jos Buttler stated final week that his aspect mustn’t boycott a match towards the Afghanistan males’s workforce 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 towards Afghanistan in the identical event.
Requested why Australia was ready to play a males’s sport towards 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 making an attempt to do every thing we will in our energy to make a distinction,” Hockley stated. “We’ve performed Afghanistan in different ICC occasions. You need to draw a line someplace and I believe we’ve made our stance fairly clear.”
Mohammad Nabi and Rashid Khan from Afghanistan’s males’s nationwide cricket workforce 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 grow to be an annual one and that it might “promote a lot of conversations.”
“You want moments like this to immediate actual change. The primary piece is consciousness,” Hockley stated. “Hopefully this sport simply raises consciousness. I believe it’s an actual beacon of hope.”
Printed – January 29, 2025 09:46 am is
