Afghanistan\u2019s exiled women cricketers will tour England next month, marking another step in their effort to remain active in the sport after fleeing the country following the Taliban\u2019s return to power.<\/p>\n
The Afghan Refugee Women\u2019s Team is scheduled to begin the tour on June 22, taking part in training sessions and Twenty20 matches hosted by the England and Wales Cricket Board, with support from the Marylebone Cricket Club, the MCC Foundation and the sports consultancy It\u2019s Game On.<\/p>\n
The players will also attend the Women\u2019s T20 World Cup final at Lord\u2019s as guests, according to ESPNcricinfo.<\/p>\n
The team traces its origins to November 2020, when the Afghanistan Cricket Board held women\u2019s cricket trials in Kabul and contracted 25 female players. Those plans were effectively halted after the Taliban regained control of Afghanistan in August 2021 and imposed sweeping restrictions on women and girls, including barring them from organized sports.<\/p>\n
Most of the players now live in Australia. While their campaign to gain recognition from the International Cricket Council as Afghanistan\u2019s national women\u2019s team in exile has not succeeded, they have continued to play together.<\/p>\n
According to ESPNcricinfo, in January 2025, the group played as an Afghanistan Women\u2019s XI against a Cricket Without Borders team during the Women\u2019s Ashes series in Australia. The players also attended last year\u2019s Women\u2019s Cricket World Cup in India and participated in coaching programs at the Board of Control for Cricket in India\u2019s Center of Excellence in Bengaluru.<\/p>\n
Supporters say the England tour offers a rare opportunity for the players to compete as a team while drawing attention to the challenges faced by Afghan women athletes.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese players have shown extraordinary courage and commitment to the game, despite everything that has been taken from them,\u201d quoted by ESPNcricinfo, former Australia cricketer and commentator Mel Jones, a co-founder of It\u2019s Game On.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey deserve more opportunities like this; they deserve to be recognized as part of the global cricket community,\u201d she said, adding that long-term support for displaced female athletes remains necessary.<\/p>\n
Clare Connor, deputy chief executive of the England and Wales Cricket Board and managing director of England Women, praised the players\u2019 resilience.<\/p>\n
\u201cSince being displaced from Afghanistan in 2021, these players have shown extraordinary resilience in continuing their cricket journeys in incredibly challenging circumstances,\u201d Connor said.<\/p>\n
\u201cCricket has a responsibility to stand for inclusion and opportunity, and we are proud to be hosting this tour and supporting the players in deepening their connection to the game.\u201d<\/p>\n
The tour comes as international sporting bodies continue to face scrutiny over Afghanistan\u2019s participation in global competitions amidst the exclusion of women and girls from organized sport inside the country. Under International Cricket Council rules, full-member nations are generally expected to maintain both men\u2019s and women\u2019s cricket programs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Afghanistan\u2019s exiled women cricketers will tour England next month, marking another step in their effort to remain active…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":686815,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,85],"class_list":["post-686814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cricket","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/686814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=686814"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/686814\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/686815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=686814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=686814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=686814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}