Afghans condemn Australia’s boycott of men’s cricket team

“Cricket! The handiest desire for the united states. Keep politics out of it,” tweeted Afghanistan’s maximum well-known cricketer Rashid Khan after Australia withdrew from One-Day International (ODI) collection in opposition to the south Asian country scheduled to be held in March.

Khan, the face of Afghan cricket and the captain of the united states’s T20 group, become now no longer alone. Soon a refrain of condemnation followed, along with from fellow cricketers, expressing their disapproval of Australia’s selection to boycott the Afghan men’s group.

“I am clearly disenchanted to pay attention that Australia have pulled out of the collection to play us in March. I take tremendous pleasure in representing my united states and we’ve got made tremendous development on the arena stage,” Khan stated in a declaration on Thursday.

“This selection from CA [Cricket Australia] units us again in that journey,” he stated.

Mohammad Nabi, the Afghan cricket group’s former captain, additionally condemned the cancellation of the collection to be performed in Dubai.

“Let’s separate sports activities and politics,” he stated, including that Afghan cricketers are position fashions and proud ambassadors of the cricketing fraternity.

‘Pathetic’ selection

Afghan speedy bowler Naveen ul Haq Murid referred to as scrapping the collection “childish” and accused Australia of removing Afghans’ handiest cause for happiness in preference to being supportive. Afghans used #StopPoliticsinCricket to explicit their views, with a number of them welcoming the Australian selection.

Australia cricket board stated its selection become taken withinside the wake of the current Taliban assertion to similarly shrink ladies’s freedom. Last month, Taliban rulers banned ladies from college and additionally barred them from running in NGOs. Women also are banned from attending college past the 6th grade and running maximum jobs out of doors in their homes.

The Australian authorities has subsidized the board’s selection.

The Taliban have up to now now no longer issued a declaration, however former President Hamid Karzai expressed his disappointment.

“Disappointed to look the Australian Cricket board making this selection [e]especifically given the demanding situations the Afghan human beings face. We stay particularly pleased with our National Cricket group and all our younger sports activities representatives,” he tweeted.

Cricket has big assist in a country racked through a long time of battle and occupation. People, along with cricketers, highlighted that the game has introduced smiles to Afghan faces amid violence and upheaval. The Taliban lower back to electricity in August 2021, while the US-led overseas forces withdrew from the united states after 20 years.

Australia gave comparable motives for cancelling a one-off take a look at in shape in opposition to Afghanistan in Hobart, Australia, in November 2021.

The Afghanistan Cricket Board stated it become saddened through “the pathetic” selection through Cricket Australia. It pledged to method the International Cricket Council – the game’s maximum governing body. The ICC has but to touch upon the issue.

It accused Cricket Australia of prioritising political hobbies over honest play and sportsmanship, undermining the integrity of the sport.

“Cricket has performed a great position in selling team spirit and country wide pleasure in Afghanistan,” the board stated.

“After years of battle and conflict, cricket has helped to carry human beings collectively and offer a feel of normalcy to the united states. It has additionally been an critical supply of desire and idea for all Afghans, specifically younger human beings.”

Khan, the Afghan cricketer, additionally threatened to drag out of Australia’s Big Bash T20 League. Khan performs for the Adelaide Strikers franchise.

“If gambling vs Afghanistan is so uncomfortable for Australia then I wouldn’t need to make everyone uncomfortable with my presence withinside the BBL. Therefore, I might be strongly thinking about my destiny in that competition.”

Australia on Friday defended their selection to drag out of a cricket collection in opposition to Afghanistan.

“Basic human rights isn’t politics,” Cricket Australia leader govt Nick Hockley stated in a declaration despatched to AFP.

“It is truely a completely hard and unhappy situation. We did now no longer take this selection lightly,” Hockley stated.

Cricket Australia were hopeful of gambling Afghanistan and become in normal touch with the Afghanistan Cricket Board, he added.

“However, bulletins through the Taliban in overdue November and overdue December signalling the deterioration of simple human rights for ladies in Afghanistan caused our selection to withdraw from those games,” he stated.

“We renowned and applaud Rashid Khan’s and different Afghanistan cricketers’ remarks on the time condemning the Taliban’s selection to prohibit ladies from universities. Rashid will constantly be welcome withinside the BBL,” Hockley stated, relating to Afghan cricketers’ public stand for ladies’s rights.

Australia become devoted to developing the sport for ladies and men, the cricket leader stated, including that he was hoping higher situations for ladies and ladies in Afghanistan could permit cricket among the international locations to resume “withinside the now no longer-too-remote destiny”.

But one of the ladies concerned withinside the improvement of ladies’s cricket in Afghanistan instructed an Australian website, SBS News, the boycott may want to cause extra international locations cancelling matches. If that happens, Tuba Sangar, Afghanistan’s former ladies’s cricket improvement manager, stated, Afghanistan may want to lose its club withinside the ICC.

Sangar instructed SBS News that Afghanistan did now no longer get “the whole club [of the ICC] easily”.

Questioning the Australian board’s selection, Ben Gardner, dealing with editor of wisden.com, wrote that Australia performed Afghanistan in T20 World Cup remaining 12 months regardless of the Taliban ban on ladies’s cricket in September.

He mentioned that Afghanistan become granted ICC complete club in 2017 regardless of the united states now no longer having a ladies’s group.

“What this [boycott] does do is deprive Afghanistan’s cricketers of the platform from which they could communicate out. Their cricket group is their best cultural export…,” Gardner wrote withinside the article.