The prospect of reviving the Afghanistan women’s team could be on the agenda during the ICC’s annual meet
ICC’s annual conference is already underway in Colombo, Sri Lanka from 19th July to 22nd July 2024. Various points are discussed in the annual meet. One of the factors that could be discussed would be the absence of the Afghanistan national Women’s Cricket team.
Afghanistan are the only ICC member nation to not have a women’s cricket team. It is also one of the main factors of being an ICC member. In November 2020 the Afghanistan Cricket Board (ACB) had offered contracts to a bunch of women cricketers in the country. However, they have suffered a massive blow as the women’s team have now lost their existence after the return of Taliban’s power.
The situation has gotten worse for women in Afghanistan as they have lost most of their rights. Secondary education and work, as well as sporting activity, have been denied to them. After the Afghanistan men’s team’s first-ever appearance in the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup semi-final in the USA and the West Indies. However, they ended up on the losing side against South Africa by nine wickets.
Courtesy of the historic achievement by the men’s team, a group of Afghanistan women’s cricketers contracted by the ACB wrote to the ICC chairman Greg Barclay requesting them to set up a refugee team for them in Australia. Regarding the situation, a number of boards have proposed an idea of reserving a certain percentage of annual revenue distributed to the Afghanistan men’s team for supporting the Afghanistan women’s team.