Has the International Cricket Council (ICC) failed Afghanistan women cricketers?

One of the major repercussions of the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan was the curtailment of rights of women including the banning of all sports for women and girls in the country. (Spaaij 2024). The Afghanistan women cricket team was consequently also affected and the Afghanistan women cricketers first sought refuge in neighbouring Pakistan and then were granted emergency visas by Australia (Babar 2024).

The plight of Afghanistan exiled women cricketers once again surfaced as they played an exhibition match with a Cricketer Without Borders XI on January 30, 2025 in Melbourne (Asija 2025). Tim Watts, the Australian Assistant Minister for Special Affairs, present at the match underscored the importance of inclusion and empowerment in sport and also highlighted that rules of the International Cricket Council (ICC) mandate that its full members have a responsibility to promote women cricket (Watts 2025). 

There have also been calls from some quarters in England and South Africa to boycott their national team’s matches against Afghanistan in the upcoming ICC Champions Trophy. In England, more than 160 politicians signed a letter urging the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) officials as well as the England players to “speak out against the horrific treatment of women and girls in Afghanistan under the Taliban … (and) to consider a boycott of the upcoming match against Afghanistan (The Guardian 2025). The South African Sports Minister Gayton Mckenzie has advocated that Cricket South Africa (CSA), the apex body of South Africa cricket should boycott the country’s Champions Trophy fixture with Afghanistan (Gleeson 2025). However, both the ECB and CSA have denied any possibility of boycotting their countries’ respective matches with Afghanistan despite expressing concerns at the plight of Afghan women crickets. Richard Gould, the Chief Executive of ECB has written a letter to the ICC to stop the “gender apartheid”(Ingle 2025). CSA President Rihan Richards has advocated for a “unified and collective approach from all ICC members”(Cricket South Africa 2025).

The response of the ICC to this crisis has been lacklustre so far. In 2021, the ICC set up a working group for the observance and reviewing of cricket in Afghanistan, in particular after the Taliban takeover. (ESPN Cricinfo 2021). One of the ICC Membership criteria clearly states that its full and associate members should have a satisfactory women’s pathway structure in place. Full Members must have a proper women cricket structure and the national cricket boards should allot a portion of their funds for the development of women cricket. The ICC has not suspended the ACB, saying that it cannot penalise the cricket board or players for abiding by the laws set by the government of their country. (Passa 2023).

Afghanistan exiled women cricketers have argued that a portion of the ICC funds earmarked for ACB should be used for funding a team of Afghanistan women exiles. However, the ICC refuses to buy this line of thought. An ICC spokesman said that only the Afghan national body has the authority to recognise a national team. However, such an argument represents a reluctance by the ICC to take a strong decision. The ICC can take a leaf out of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) which continues to recognize the exiled Afghan National Olympic Committee leadership as the official representative of Afghan athletes (The Economist 2024, Gonella-Platts 2024).

It looks highly unlikely at this point that the ICC will suspend the ACB nor emulate the path shown by the IOC. The ICC continues to dilly-dally on the question of restoring women cricket in Afghanistan. Critics of the ICC accuse it of being toothless in this issue and allege that the ICC does not feel that the “rights of women are worth making a stand about.” (Nicholson and Maurice 2023).  It must also be noted that Afghan women cricket players oppose the move to ban the Afghan men cricket team “since it would deprive them of a rare sense of pride” (The Economist 2024).

However, so far, the ICC leadership has failed Afghanistan women cricketers. The United Nations has said that access to sports is a fundamental human right (United Nations 2016). Denying opportunities for women to participate in sports, including cricket, violates these rights.

Dr Pawan Mathur

Senior researcher at the International Institute for Non-Aligned Studies, Delhi and sports columnist at New Delhi Times.

Blog posts represent the views of the author and not that of Sport&EU or its members