Source :- THE AGE NEWS
Afghanistan’s refugee women cricketers may finally be about to find out the answers to a pair of questions that have hung in the air since they fled the Taliban in 2021.
How good can they be as cricketers? And can they qualify for world cups and Olympic Games?
Firoza Amiri and Nahida Sapan, played for the Afghanistan XI in Melbourne in January.Credit: Getty Images for Cricket Australia
For Mel Jones, the former Australian cricketer and Cricket Australia director who worked tirelessly alongside Emma Staples and Dr Catherine Ordway to get the players out of Afghanistan and then help them establish new lives in exile, the chance to dwell on those cricket questions is a huge relief.
“People understand now why we went missing from family and friends for so long,” Jones told this masthead. “Because you’re head down in visa processes.
“The really beautiful parts of it is the relationships with these players now and the trust you have with them, and knowing because of those almost four years gone past, you’re now part of the exciting next phase.
“So much of the past four years has been unknowns, you don’t know if they’re going to make it here, you don’t know how their health is… whereas now we’re in a situation where there’s a little more control over next steps and opportunities. It’s nice to see these women step up and thrive after having been through so much.”
After persistent lobbying, the International Cricket Council agreed last week in Harare to formally support the players, largely based in Australia, and provide avenues for them to play on the world stage.
This recognition will be led by the boards of Australia, England and India, with financial support from the ICC’s multimillion-dollar strategic fund. While an exact budget is yet to be finalised, the players will not be under-resourced. “We just have to work out what’s needed,” a source said on condition of anonymity because ICC board discussions are confidential.
These outcomes mean the players will no longer be tied in any way to the Afghanistan Cricket Board, which receives about $17 million annually from the ICC but cannot countenance women’s players because of the Taliban regime.
“When we took our contracts it was January 1, 2021,” Firooza Afghan told this masthead last year.
“At that time the ACB had a plan for us to play a match against Oman and Bangladesh, but then unfortunately when our country fell to the Taliban, we lost the chance.
“We just want to have a team and show the world we also can play cricket as women. That’s our dream and goal, to represent our country like others do.”
Since 2021, Afghanistan’s women and girls have been forbidden from education, sport and most jobs. The Taliban’s treatment of women has been widely termed “gender Apartheid”.
The outcry has led to ever louder calls for a sporting boycott of the men’s team still funded through the ACB – notably by British MPs ahead of the recent Champions Trophy in Pakistan. But that outcome would be contrary to the wishes of the female players. Their strong view is that elevating the women’s team should not come at the expense of the men, who have been arguably world cricket’s best emerging team for the past decade.
Mel Jones with former Australian captain Meg Lanning.Credit: Getty Images
“Kudos to these women. They read the room perfectly in terms of the way to go about this,” Jones said. “They wanted to make sure it was purely about them having the right to play, and anything about boycotts or bans, they just didn’t want to engage with that.
“They wanted to watch the Afghanistan men play, they got joy out of that. But they were so focused on themselves.”
According to two sources with knowledge of confidential ICC discussions, there was resistance among South Asian nations to a summary boycott of the Afghanistan men. It took several rounds of discussions at the global table – and some delicate political talks in India in particular – to have the current funding plan approved.
The arrival of former BCCI secretary Jay Shah as ICC chair, with his family links to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s BJP government, has meant that the global body no longer has any worries about second-guessing what India might think about the issue. Shah, who oversaw the belated introduction of the women’s T20 Premier League in India, also spoke recently with the IOC’s new president Kirsty Coventry, who raised the issue of Afghanistan.
Cricket Without Borders founder and chair Clare Cannon (left and director Ken Jacobs (right) with Afghani cricketers Firoza Amiri and Nahida Sapan.Credit: Getty Images for Cricket Australia
But there is wide agreement that the Afghanistan women’s first game together, at Melbourne’s Junction Oval in January, was the true turning point. It showed there was a team wanting to play, rather than a collection of cricketers split between Melbourne, Canberra, Canada and Britain.
“The fact it hasn’t gone away is one thing. The fact CA had the game, the players have set up Pitch our Future, the announcement of the Olympics and the six teams for the men’s and women’s competitions, there’s a variety of different conversations happening on the IOC side of things,” Jones said. “Kirsty Coventry coming in as the new head of the IOC. She and Jay Shah met about a month ago and discussed the Afghanistan women’s cricket team.
“There was the MP pressure in England as well. All this meant it was something that needed addressing. .”
Jones and Staples have created Pitch our Future, an organisation with a three-year plan for the players, and are eager to speak with the ICC’s task force. To Jones, the most logical qualification pathway is through East Asia Pacific, which could ultimately lead to the T20 World Cup and, in time, the Olympics.
“The first question the players asked was ‘does this mean we can play as Afghanistan’,” Jones said. “There’s opportunities to be part of qualifying tournaments and the like, which would mean they are an Afghanistan XI, which is exactly what they’ve been fighting for.
“I think logistically, being in Australia at the moment, Asia Pacific location and quality of match-ups makes most sense [for them].”
For Cricket Australia, its recently departed chief executive Nick Hockley, chair Mike Baird and new CEO Todd Greenberg, the outcome is an example of what can be achieved through “middle power” diplomacy in the ICC conference room.
“There’s a lot of hard work to go,” Baird said. “But my belief is that this will give hope to all those Afghan refugee women across the world.”
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