The England and Wales Cricket Board is requesting a collective reaction to activity against Afghanistan. UK legislators are encouraging the English men’s group to decline to play one month from now’s Champions Trophy match against the nation in repudiation of the Taliban government’s attack on women’s rights. Afghanistan’s men’s group has been allowed to take part in ICC competitions seemingly with no sanctions. Nonetheless, the International Cricket Council (ICC) guidelines express that full participation is dependent upon having women’s cricket groups and pathway structures set up.
In a letter to the ECB, Labour MP Tonia Antoniazzi, and marked by the likes of Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, and previous Labour leaders Jeremy Corbyn and Lord Kinnock, requested that England boycott the match to “send a clear signal” that “such grotesque abuses will not be tolerated”. Twenty-five female cricketers were given contracts by the ACB in 2020. Not exactly a year later, the Taliban returned to power, ending any progress towards Afghanistan playing an official women’s international.
ECB CEO Richard Gould expressed that the administering body “is focused on finding an answer” which “upholds the rights of women and girls in Afghanistan”. Gould added that the ECB will interface with the UK government, other international boards, and the ICC to “investigate every possible avenue for meaningful change” yet recognized there were “various perspectives” on the issue. Gould clarified that the ECB will proceed with its policy of not planning respective matches against Afghanistan yet didn’t commit in any case to a boycott.
Australia has refrained from playing a few men’s series against Afghanistan as of late because of the Taliban regime’s limitations on women, yet they played each other at the 2023 50-over World Cup and the 2024 T20 World Cup. Bilateral matches are organized by singular cricket sheets, yet competitions, for example, the Champions Trophy are run by the ICC, and given Afghanistan is being permitted to partake by the governing body, England is set to face them as planned. Nonetheless, the ECB chief executive believes that a comprehensive, ICC-wide strategy would be signficantly more impactful than unilateral actions by individual members
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