On Thursday, the Afghanistan women’s cricket team is set to play their first exhibition game in three years. In a T20 contest, the team called Afghanistan Women’s X1 will play against Cricket Without Borders XI at Junction Oval in Melbourne, Australia. The 21 players representing Afghanistan Women’s XI currently live in Australia and were previously contracted with the Afghanistan Cricket Board. Firoza Amiri and Nahida Sapan, who will captain the team, dream of playing for Afghanistan one day but are happy about the building momentum “for a change and improvement.”

“This match can open doors for Afghan women for education, sport, and our future,” Sapan stated while being thankful for all the people who support the team.

Amid this historic outing for the Afghanistan Women’s X1, WCA (World Cricketers Association) CEO Tom Moffat has suggested a new “systematic” way to support the Afghanistan Women’s team. As per Moffat, the ICC and other governing bodies play a role to ensure the rights of all players including Afghan women are being protected; nonetheless, it considers a selective boycott against the Afghanistan men’s team as not the only route to support the rights of Afghan women cricketers.

“That doesn’t necessarily mean boycotts; there are a number of ways to exercise leverage, but to date the random and inconsistent manner of dealing with it, and of even having the conversation around the world, highlights the need for cricket’s governing bodies to implement a more systematic global approach to protecting basic player rights, along with just about every other aspect of the sport.”

Afghanistan, which has been a full-time member of the ICC since 2017, was also developing a women’s team, contracting 25 female players in 2020. However, in August 2021, the Taliban government took over and dismantled the women’s team. The Afghanistan Cricket Board was not allowed to field a national women’s team as per the laws forbidding women from playing any sport. As the team is a full member of ICC, it is required to have a women’s team as well and has received harsh criticism since then.

Team Australia has fully opposed playing against Afghanistan in bilateral series in recent years amid the policies implemented by the Taliban. In 2024 Australia also called off the three-match T20 series against the team in the UAE but had to face Afghanistan in major tournaments, including the 2024 ICC World Cup and the upcoming ICC Champions Trophy.

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Interestingly, the ECB (English and Wales Cricket Board), which has also decided to not play any bilateral match against Afghanistan, has been urged to not play their upcoming match against Afghanistan at the Champions Trophy. Both the teams are placed in Group B and are set to face each other on 26th February in Lahore.

According to a letter addressed to the CEO of the ECB, Richard Gould, via a cross-parliamentary group, the England cricket players and officials should speak out against the “treatment of women and girls in Afghanistan under the Taliban.” However, the board has rejected the plea and believes the issue requires “an ICC-led response and should not be addressed through unilateral actions by individual countries.”

As per Amiri, she will support the selective ban against the men’s team if it’s the only way to pressurize the Afghanistan Cricket Board to take an initiative for the women’s team. The men’s team has showcased many successful outings in the past few years and also made it to the semifinals of the 2024 T20 World Cup. Although Amiri feels heartbroken seeing “the men can do something and the women cannot,” she still believes the men’s team brings hope for them.

“They can be very, very helpful for us and for all the women. If women can start playing sport, women can start studying as well. It can be a pathway,” said Amiri