The question of the rights and wrongs of playing cricket against the Afghanistan men’s team is never far from the surface.
It was reignited in the past week with Cricket Australia’s chief executive describing an exhibition match featuring an Afghanistan Women’s XI – made up of refugees – as a “real beacon of hope”.
For some, however, it is a gesture to assuage guilt over our continued involvement with their men’s team.
In Wisden in March 2023, Raf Nicholson and Megan Maurice wrote an article entitled: ‘Cricket’s response to Afghanistan has been woeful – the ECB and CA should withdraw from the ICC in protest‘.
The article details the failure of the ICC to support women in Afghanistan since the Taliban resumed power in that country and has restricted the rights of women in a number of areas – access to education and to playing sports are but two. Yet the ICC continues to provide funds to support men’s cricket.
The Australian Cricket Board pulled out of a men’s tour to Afghanistan scheduled for March 2023.
In response, the Afghanistan Cricket Board accused the ACB of “playing politics” to which the ACB CEO, Nick Hockley responded, “basic human rights is not politics”.
However, to confuse matters, the Australian team played against the Afghanistan team during the recent World Cup in India.
Afghanistan players celebrate a wicket. (Photo by Matthew Lewis-ICC/ICC via Getty Images)
To quote Nicholson and Maurice in the Wisden article:
“Action should have been taken immediately after the takeover. But all the ICC did was set up a toothless working group, which has continually reported a total lack of women’s cricket activity, while simultaneously recommending that nothing be done to penalise Afghanistan for this.”
“Some at the ICC will protest that this is justified – any other course of action jeopardises the current non-interference of the Taliban with the running of the ACB. The Taliban are said to care deeply about cricket, and are keen to see its men’s team continue to shine on the international stage. Well, good. Hit them where it hurts.”
“Some will say that this is a step too far, when any action on the Afghanistan issue would simply serve to penalise those playing men’s cricket in Afghanistan. If that sounds familiar, it’s because people said the same when a boycott of South Africa was suggested. They’re as wrong now as they were then.”
Over time, many have suggested that sport and politics should not mix. This is both naïve and wrong.
Last year, England spinner, Shoaib Bashir, was unable to travel with the rest of the team on their tour to India due to a delay in the approval of the granting of his visa.
He missed the first Test match. He, like the rest of the team, were selected 41 days prior to the tour starting. He, like the rest of the team, began the process of applying for a visa at this time.
He, like most in the team, was born and educated in England. He, unlike most in the team, is of Pakistani heritage. The ICC seemed rather silent on the matter.
Also in 2024, Cricket South Africa stripped teenager, David Teeger, of the captaincy of the South African Under 19 cricket team allegedly because they claimed he might be a target for anti-war protesters.
Teeger had recently been cleared by an independent inquiry established by CSA of any wrongdoing following comments he made in October 2023, at an awards ceremony where he was recognised at the Jewish Achiever Awards.
This ‘demotion’ came at about the same time the South African government had levelled a complaint of genocide against Israel with the International Court of Justice.
Former South African cricket captain, Dr Ali Bacher, who is also like Teeger, Jewish, has requested that CSA provide “a comprehensive explanation of the decision-making process”.
CSA’s responses to date have been somewhat contradictory. The ICC was rather silent on the matter.
The ICC, however, were quick to reprimand the Australian opening bat, Usman Khawaja, after he wore a black armband during a Test match against Pakistan.
He has recently expressed opinions about the tragedy that is the Israel-Gaza war and the terrible loss of life. Khawaja also reflected on the double standards of the ICC after he sought permission, and was denied, to display an image of a peace dove on his bat.
Usman Khawaja was given a reprimand for wearing a black armband to protest the violence in Gaza throughout the first Test against Pakistan. (Photo by Will Russell/Getty Images)
Double standards and the ICC – heaven forbid such thoughts. To alter a line from Shakespeare’s Brutus; it is an honourable body.
I must admit to being rather taken by a line from Ian Chappell who described the ICC as ‘event organisers’.
I have been a little surprised that the current Australian men’s team have not taken a stand on the question of playing against the Afghanistan men’s team. It is not about women’s cricket in Afghanistan is about the rights of women.
Gideon Haigh in his excellent book, ‘The Summer Game’, reminds us of the interplay between politics and cricket at the highest level.
In 1955, the Prime Minister of Australia, Robert Menzies, a cricket tragic if ever there was, wrote in most respectful terms to the Australian Cricket Board about the possibility of a tour to India:
“You will at once see the international political advantages for Australia in building up goodwill in India; but you will also, of course, be familiar with other problems with which I am dimly acquainted … Do make it clear to your Board that I am not seeking to make an impertinent intrusion on matters which are their affair and which they are much better qualified to deal with than I am. But the reasons I have indicated earlier, plus my own enthusiasm about the game, will, I hope, constitute a respectable excuse.”
The first Australian tour to India took place the following year.
So politics and cricket, in fact, most international sports, are inextricably intertwined – and when you add religion and money, the mixture is indeed a heady one.
One is often disappointed; one is never surprised. My mind keeps straying to that shortest of sentences found in the New Testament – “Jesus wept”.
A postscript: many years ago, the former England cricket captain, Bob Wyatt, suggested rather romantically that: “cricket and democracy were similar as both require patience, tolerance and understanding. Both are not as spectacular as many other forms of government or forms of games, and are only appreciated when their finer points are grasped“.
Both democracy and cricket seem under attack at the moment.
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