With Taliban back in control in Afghanistan, it poses a grave danger to organised sport, especially female athletes.
File image of the Afghanistan cricket team. Twitter@Irelandcricket
Afghanistan are due to play three ODIs at Mahinda Rajapaksa Stadium in Hambantota starting September 1 but that isn’t such a sure thing now, despite the Taliban’s known indulgent stance on cricket. The series was earlier going to be played in the UAE but was moved to accommodate the Indian Premier League.
It’s just not cricket; sport in general faces challenging times with the ascendance of the Taliban, who are against organised sport and used sports stadia for public executions when they ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001
“Efforts are being made to check their whereabouts,” said an anonymous international cricket official about Afghanistan players as per news agency AFP.
“We are going there (Sri Lanka) and playing Pakistan for a series. Overall situation is great (in Afghanistan). It was like, two days was needed for regime change and at that time people were in fear, but now we have normal traffic for people and other official activity. Most probably, all offices will be open from tomorrow,” Afghanistan Cricket Board (ACB) chief executive officer Hamid Shinwari told Indian Express.
Star cricketers Rashid Khan and Mohammed Nabi had earlier appealed for peace. Nabi had urged world leaders to help Afghanistan. Rashid is playing the Hundred in England while Nabi is in Dubai.
future, as their homes are being seized. I appeal to the leaders of the world; please don’t let Afghanistan go into chaos. We need your Support. We want Peace.#PeaceforAfghanistan #FreedomforAfghanistan #StopKillingAfghans
— Mohammad Nabi (@MohammadNabi007) August 10, 2021
Dear World Leaders! My country is in chaos,thousand of innocent people, including children & women, get martyred everyday, houses & properties being destructed.Thousand families displaced..
Don’t leave us in chaos. Stop killing Afghans & destroying Afghaniatan.
We want peace.— Rashid Khan (@rashidkhan_19) August 10, 2021
“As an Afghan, I bleed to see where my beloved country is today. Afghanistan descends into Chaos and there has been a substantial rise in calamity and tragedy and is currently in humanitarian crisis. Families are forced to leave their homes behind and head to Kabul with an unknown future, as their homes are being seized. I appeal to the leaders of the world; please don’t let Afghanistan go into chaos. We need your Support. We want Peace,” Nabi had tweeted.
Afghanistan earned official ODI status in 2009 and were Associate Members from 2013 to June 2017. Soon after, they were promoted to full membership which enabled them to play Test cricket.
The national cricket team was born in 2001 following the fall of Taliban. Rising from the years of violence, cricket has emerged as the most popular sport in the war-ravaged nation. The men’s team’s biggest honours have been in winning the ACC T20 Cup four times, the ICC World T20 Qualifier in 2010, being Asian Games runners-up twice and winning the 2018 ICC World Cup Qualifier.
For the women, it has been significantly difficult in comparison. The team was formed in 2010 but disbanded in 2014 without an official ICC match being played. In a bid to restart women’s cricket, the ACB handed out central contracts to 25 women in November 2020. They also ran a training camp in October to pick from an initial pool of 40 cricketers.
For men’s cricket, there are doubts over the series going ahead and the T20 World Cup in October. Shinwari, however, is optimistic there will not be any disruption to the team’s participation. “Taliban loves cricket. They have supported us since the beginning. They did not interfere in our activities,” said Shinwari.
“It can be said that cricket flourished during the Taliban era. It is also a fact that many of our players practised in Peshawar and they made the sport mainstream in Afghanistan,” he said referring to cricket’s rise in the country with many playing and learning the sport in neighbouring Pakistan.
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