Pearls and Irritations

While all eyes will be fixed on the Paris Olympics, we should not forget those athletes who have missed out, through no fault of their own.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) will welcome athletes from the territories of 206 National Olympic Committees (NOC) and the IOC Refugee Olympic Team (EOR).

Six athletes from Afghanistan have been invited, including three male athletes (the only cohort recognised by the Taliban) and three women competing in Cycling and Athletics. Even if the NOC of Afghanistan were not sending athletes directly, the Olympic Refugee Foundation funding the team is supporting 37 athletes from 15 NOCs to compete in Paris this year. The Foundation enables athletes to compete via this avenue in recognition of the many forcibly displaced citizens across the world.

Meanwhile, another global sport, cricket, governed by international body, the International Cricket Council (ICC), which produced an operating surplus of USD 596M last financial year, recognises and funds teams that are endorsed by a country board. However unlike the IOC, in the cricketing world, only the Afghanistan men’s team is recognised, not the women’s team. Consequently, some USD 17M of ICC funding flows to support the Afghanistan men’s team who just last month defeated cricketing giant Australia to progress to the ICC T20 Men’s World Cup semi-finals.

Sadly, the 25 Afghan women cricketers, contracted by the Afghan Cricket Board (ACB) in 2020 to represent their nation, have not competed in a single match. Since the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in 2021, the development of the Afghan women’s cricket team faced annihilation with many fleeing the country in fear of their lives and seeking refugee support in New Zealand, Canada and the majority in Australia. From there they have been rebuilding their lives and seeking recognition and women cricketers. So they wrote to the ICC about their status but heard nothing.

Last month the displaced Afghan women cricketers in Australia again penned a letter to ICC Chair Greg Barclay, asking for the team to be recognised as a refugee team and be administered by East Asia Cricket’s office based at Cricket Australia. This fair and decent proposition would pave the way for the ICC to recognise the women’s team and provide critical funding support to Afghan girls and women cricketers to train and develop just as their male colleagues are able to do.

The letter plainly stated the case for parity at a most fundamental level. “A profound sadness remains that we, as women, cannot represent our country like the male cricketers. Creating a team of Afghan refugees can give us a chance to play, coach and administer a cricket team without borders. The creation of this team will allow all Afghan women who want to represent their country to come together under one banner. Our goals in having a refugee team are to develop and showcase our talent, give hope to the women remaining in Afghanistan, and draw attention to the challenges the women of Afghanistan face”.

Since issuing the letter to the ICC, there has again been no response and whilst the ICC annual conference held in Colombo last week provided the perfect forum to address this inequity, reports mentioned only brief discussions on the topic with no executive decisions made to address the plight of these female cricketers.

Regardless of the inertia by the ICC, Cricket Australia (CA) has made a stand to not have its men’s team play cricket against Afghanistan in bilateral series because of the deteriorating human rights faced by Afghan women and girls. Cricket Australia has also already cancelled three series against Afghanistan under this policy, a position that sees Australia stand alone with no other full ICC member having done this.

Afghan women and girls have not only been virtually erased from public life by the Taliban but have been deprived of their most basic rights. Besides the denial of education for girls past the age of twelve, women have been barred from working in both governmental and non-governmental agencies, or even running their own businesses. This has brought on a mental health crisis across the country with girls reporting anxiety and depression, and an alarming surge in suicides.

The opportunity remains for other cricket governing bodies to stand behind Afghan women cricketers. The world’s biggest cricket board, the BCCI, currently supports the Afghan men’s team by hosting bilateral series on Indian soil despite the ongoing human rights abuses for Afghan women and girls. This is in contrast to the Indian government’s consistent advocacy for equal rights of women and girls to participate in all aspects of Afghan society.

Indian Foreign Minister S Jaishankar has publicly spoken about preserving the rights of women in Afghanistan and the need for inclusive and representative government. Considering the BCCI currently receives almost 40% of global cricket revenue, its power amongst the global cricket community could speak volumes if it took a stand on these human rights issues.

As global attention turns to Paris over the next fortnight, it must be recognised that not all sports, and their participants, are recognised equally and cricket’s ICC needs to urgently address the embedded inequity of participating members if it is to deliver on its stated objective of equity in the Men’s and Women’s game of cricket.

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