Afghanistan should celebrate their cricket success – but the world must not forget the Taliban’s oppression of women

Young Afghans play cricket at the Hazoori Bagh area in Kabul, Afghanistan, 10 November 2023. (Photo: EPA-EFE / Samiullah Popal)

By Firdose Moonda

26 Jun 2024

Afghanistan will face South Africa in the semi-finals of the T20 World Cup on Thursday. But should they even be playing, given their country’s oppressive regime?

As far as fairytales go, the story of the Afghanistan men’s cricket team is particularly magical. They were produced out of the ruins of war, where groups of young men learnt the game in refugee camps in Pakistan in the 1990s and came together to play in lower echelons of the International Cricket Council’s (ICC) World Cricket League.

In two years, they advanced from Division Five to an ODI World Cup Qualifier and were granted international status in 2011. Thirteen years later, they are in their first World Cup semi-final, but in the shadows of this unprecedented success lies a silent nightmare: the treatment of Afghanistan’s women.

Not only are women banned from participating in sports, they are also prohibited from receiving an education beyond primary school, are denied access to healthcare and are largely confined to their homes.

afghan cricket women rights Afghan women gather to receive winter relief goods distributed by Ummah Welfare Trust, a UK-based international relief and development charity, in Kandahar, Afghanistan, 28 December 2023. (Photo: EPA-EFE / Stringer)

Afghanistan is practising gender-based apartheid which makes an interesting parallel with their semi-final opponents, South Africa, who were once prevented from playing international sport because of apartheid.

And while sporting isolation itself did not end white-minority rule in this country, it significantly influenced global perceptions of apartheid South Africa and reinforced its reputation as a pariah.

Not meeting criteria

Is Taliban-ruled Afghanistan deserving of the same treatment, and if so, should cricket take the lead, given that growth in the women’s game is a key tenet for its members?

The ICC’s criteria for Full Members include that a country’s cricket board must have, among other things, both men’s and women’s national teams, at least three domestic teams with List A status, at least two men’s ODI venues accredited by the ICC, a written constitution, and a sufficient player pool.

When Afghanistan and Ireland were awarded Full Member status in 2017, Afghanistan did not meet most of these stipulations, but there was an undertaking that they would commit to developing a women’s team – and they did.

In November 2020, the Afghanistan Cricket Board contracted 25 women’s players and plans were in place for a tour to Oman the following year.

By August 2021, the Taliban took over Afghanistan and began to ban female involvement in several areas of public life. The tour never happened. At that point, forcing Afghanistan to field a women’s team would have put those players’ lives at risk. The Taliban targeted those who disobeyed them and threatened the same if women continued to play sports.

In the months that followed, Afghanistan’s female athletes sought exile abroad. Most of their women’s football team and many cricketers are now living in Australia, where they play for local clubs, study and try to raise awareness about their plight.

They united in their fear of the Taliban but they have opposing views on whether their men’s national teams should be allowed to play. Some support the men’s team and enjoy the little happiness it brings to Afghans around the world; others oppose it and don’t want to see the men have opportunities which they are denied.

Not banned?

So why is Afghanistan not banned from participation in sports like South Africa was? Apart from the threat of tragedy, which is not spoken about nearly as seriously as it should be, the other reason is money.

When South Africa was isolated, World Cups didn’t exist, so the game’s global governing bodies did not have a product to sell and broadcast rights for live sports were not part of the commercial language of the day.

afghanistan cricket taliban women Young Afghans play cricket at the Hazoori Bagh area in Kabul, Afghanistan, 10 November 2023. (Photo: EPA-EFE / Samiullah Popal)

Instead, it’s up to individual boards to decide if they want to engage with Afghanistan and most of them do. Australia was the first to cancel bilateral fixtures against Afghanistan – and they’ve done it twice in two years – as a way of standing against the Taliban’s treatment of women and girls.

On the face of it, this seems like a principled stance, but go a little deeper and it will be exposed for its hypocrisy.

The most obvious one is that Australia does not opt out of playing Afghanistan at ICC events, and though they’ve said that’s because they are not in control of tournament fixtures, it is more likely because they want to win.

World Cup pride and prize money are bigger than ever before, so we don’t get situations like 2003, where England forfeited points against Zimbabwe after citing fears over player safety and missed out on a spot at the Super Sixes. New Zealand also opted out of a match against Kenya, which ultimately cost them a spot in the semi-finals.

Australia are serial World Cup overachievers, so losing to Afghanistan at this T20 World Cup would only have stung even more.

The other reason Australia shun Afghanistan bilaterally is that they have a habit of avoiding playing against smaller countries and going to less-than-comfortable places.

In 2015, they postponed a tour to Bangladesh over player safety after an Italian aid worker was killed in Dhaka, and in 2018, they called off hosting Bangladesh because it was not financially viable to them.

They have not been to Bangladesh for an ODI series since 2011 but played a T20I series there in 2021.

Similarly, Australia has not visited or hosted an Associate country for bilateral cricket since going to Kenya in 2002. So as much as Australia can claim the moral high ground, not playing against Afghanistan is also a matter of convenience, which some are mirroring.

Recently, the England Cricket Board indicated they will also not engage Afghanistan bilaterally, but Cricket South Africa has taken no such stances and hasn’t had to.

South Africa has not played Afghanistan in a bilateral series but has met them at the last two ODI World Cups, the 2010 and 2016 T20 World Cup, and will do so in the 2024 T20 World Cup semi-final.

It will be a meeting of two sports teams whose societies have similar social ills and who may understand each other better than we think – it’s a perfect place for us, as South Africans, to consider our stance.

In the last few months, the Springboks won the Rugby World Cup on a mantra of doing it for the diversity of people who wake up every day in a difficult South Africa, facing and overcoming hardships. Also, the South African government has stood with the people of Palestine.

This country, at all levels and despite its faults, has shown itself as compassionate and understanding of those in situations of difficulty with the ability to recognise our shared humanity. The T20 World Cup semi-final presents another opportunity for that, and it would be remiss of us to ignore it.

Of course, Aiden Markram and his team will be focused on winning the match and reaching their first World Cup final.

Sports romantics will continue to celebrate the success of Afghanistan’s men, but we can also take this moment to centre the story of Afghanistan’s women.

We may not have all the answers but we can ask questions and encourage critical thought.

As a brown, female sports journalist born into a Muslim home in South Africa, and not Afghanistan, I cannot sit in my privilege and stay silent. As they say in Iran: Zan. Zendegi. Azadi.

Woman. Life. Freedom. DM

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