Afghanistan Cricket / Taliban

[Kriterion_BD]

Fair enough. But for consistency sake how can we not? Zim for example hasn’t played England since 2004 for this reason. Taliban worse than Mugabe.

Consistency for the sake of consistency doesn't do anything. Besides, what good did England's refusal to play ZIM achieve for Zimbabweans?

Because to maintain consistency you have to punish the innocent without helping anyone. Do you think the Taliban will say "Oh they won't let us play cricket? OK women you can have your jobs back!" On top of that would they let Rashid Khan fly all around the world, earn 1 million bucks a year, and bring that money back to Afghanistan? So you would now have to ensure that Afghan cricketers can seek asylum in other countries...are you prepared to do that? We are already seeing American conservatives complaining about resettling tens of thousands of Afghans in the US - and I'm sure European and OZ xenophobes are doing the same.

What ECB/CA did with ZC were cricketing decisions cloaked as "political" ones. If they imposed a SA style ban ZC would have been suspended from the ICC 20 years ago and never would have played a World Cup after 2003 or even earlier (Mugabe came to power in 1980 I think).

[Mr Twig]

Any predictions on what will happen to cricket in Afghanistan now that the Taliban are back in-charge? A team in exile surely can't last long without a solid domestic scene back home. How does one unearth new talent if the entire team is based in India? I know previously the Taliban supported cricket, but they are likely still the same stone-age barbarians they were previously so we will see what that means for cricket. I doubt anyone will be wanting to play in the Afghan T20 League anymore.

I think they've had to delay/cancel the T20 tournament which was due to start on Thursday. No surprises that this time, no Zimbabwe players are going.

All points towards exactly what you're saying. News out today that the Taliban won't allow women to play sports so there will be big pressure on the ICC to suspend Afghanistan.

[sam_ahm]

Australian sports minister has made reservations over playing Afghanistan under the Taliban regime. I feel really sad for Afghanistan cricketers, they don't deserve this really.

As of now Afghanistan's first ever test against Australia is in doubt and you have to wonder if this is the beginning of the end for Afghanistan cricket. They may not get banned but with limited exposure and most countries not willing to play against them they may not progress or develop.

[eugene]

Australian sports minister has made reservations over playing Afghanistan under the Taliban regime. I feel really sad for Afghanistan cricketers, they don't deserve this really.

As of now Afghanistan's first ever test against Australia is in doubt and you have to wonder if this is the beginning of the end for Afghanistan cricket. They may not get banned but with limited exposure and most countries not willing to play against them they may not progress or develop.

If countries blacklisted Zimbabwe cricket because of Mugabe, surely the Taliban are even less palatable?

[Kriterion_BD]

It seems the issue is the lack of women's cricket. Afghanistan is the only country to be promoted by the ICC without having a woman's team so its going to be interesting to see how the ICC rules on this.

The ICC is set to discuss in November presumably after the World Cup already starts, so the the timing is highly confusing.

For now it looks sure that the Afghanistan tour of Australia will be cancelled.

[secretzimbo]

Ridiculous that people didn't care about this issue in 2017 when they became full members. All of a sudden everyone is jumping on the fashionable horrified bandwagon because the lack of a women's team. Errr....where had the women's team been for the past 4 years? It was a disgrace that the ICC gave them an exemption tbh. Imagine if the exemption was based on race rather than gender?!?!?!

There is a clause in Associate membership criteria that allows members to field a team from only 1 of the genders. Not the case for Full Members. So now that everyone has finally noticed and people are suddenly bothered, I should imagine Afghanistan could lose Test status and Full Member status. But they'll go back to being a leading associate and therefore still playing ODIs and T20Is and qualifying for world cups etc once it all settles down.


But really - such a load of virtue signalling (as is so typical in Australia/England/the US) at the moment when actually nobody has given a fuck since 2017.

[sam_ahm]

There appears to be a very strong chance of Afghanistan getting suspended by the ICC, it might happen after the T20 WC though, in their next board meeting in November.

Rashid Khan has also stepped down from captaincy citing selection issues with the WC Squad.

It's all coming apart for Afghanistan quite quickly. Sad.

[Kriterion_BD]

Ridiculous that people didn't care about this issue in 2017 when they became full members. All of a sudden everyone is jumping on the fashionable horrified bandwagon because the lack of a women's team. Errr....where had the women's team been for the past 4 years? It was a disgrace that the ICC gave them an exemption tbh. Imagine if the exemption was based on race rather than gender?!?!?!

There is a clause in Associate membership criteria that allows members to field a team from only 1 of the genders. Not the case for Full Members. So now that everyone has finally noticed and people are suddenly bothered, I should imagine Afghanistan could lose Test status and Full Member status. But they'll go back to being a leading associate and therefore still playing ODIs and T20Is and qualifying for world cups etc once it all settles down.


But really - such a load of virtue signalling (as is so typical in Australia/England/the US) at the moment when actually nobody has given a fuck since 2017.

A lot of things have changed since George Floyd's murder last year pertaining to race and gender. For example, cricinfo just abolished the terms "batsman" and "batsmen" in place of gender neutral term "batter" about 6 months ago. Similarly they have also scrubbed the term "slow left arm chinaman" and replaced it with "left arm wristspinner". It may seem like window dressing right now, and something that doesn't actually affect people's lives, but 20 years from now when people of color may be stripped of the right to vote in places like Georgia or Texas, it might seem more profound.

[secretzimbo]

Ridiculous that people didn't care about this issue in 2017 when they became full members. All of a sudden everyone is jumping on the fashionable horrified bandwagon because the lack of a women's team. Errr....where had the women's team been for the past 4 years? It was a disgrace that the ICC gave them an exemption tbh. Imagine if the exemption was based on race rather than gender?!?!?!

There is a clause in Associate membership criteria that allows members to field a team from only 1 of the genders. Not the case for Full Members. So now that everyone has finally noticed and people are suddenly bothered, I should imagine Afghanistan could lose Test status and Full Member status. But they'll go back to being a leading associate and therefore still playing ODIs and T20Is and qualifying for world cups etc once it all settles down.


But really - such a load of virtue signalling (as is so typical in Australia/England/the US) at the moment when actually nobody has given a fuck since 2017.

A lot of things have changed since George Floyd's murder last year pertaining to race and gender. For example, cricinfo just abolished the terms "batsman" and "batsmen" in place of gender neutral term "batter" about 6 months ago. Similarly they have also scrubbed the term "slow left arm chinaman" and replaced it with "left arm wristspinner". It may seem like window dressing right now, and something that doesn't actually affect people's lives, but 20 years from now when people of color may be stripped of the right to vote in places like Georgia or Texas, it might seem more profound.

Oh, don't get me wrong, I'm on board with all of that, 100%. (My partner, who's mixed race white/Shona, is quite the activist especially on womens issues in Zim.). There are plenty of people who don't actually care at all and just jump on the fashionable bandwagon though, especially in the UK from what I hear haha. Loads of people protesting against the Taliban not having a womens cricket team suddenly - but where have they been the past four years too?

My point is more that even in 2017 very literally one of the major criteria for attaining Full Member status is the fielding of both mens and women's teams in ICC competitions. Whether gender issues were as much of a priority or not back then, the ICC shouldn't have given Afghanistan an exemption or a free pass. So even if people weren't quite as tuned into equality issues back then (although they really should have been) , then people should have been at least questioning why the ICC gave them a free pass on a membership criteria anyway, whatever the criteria. No other country gets such dispensation on any criteria at full member level.

There appears to be a very strong chance of Afghanistan getting suspended by the ICC, it might happen after the T20 WC though, in their next board meeting in November.

I'm not sure they will be 'suspended' as such, rather it's likely they could lose full member/test status and become an Associate again. In the Associate member criteria there is a specific clause that allows associates to decline fielding womens teams for cultural/religious reasons.

Again, fair enough if ICC demote Afghanistan or suspend them or whatever. But it's quite hypocritical and they really should have done so for the past four years as well. Afghanistan don't have a womens cricket team, they haven't played a match since 2012, and have refused to enter a range of ACC and ICC tournaments over the past four years that as full members they were supposedly mandated to enter. There have been some photo ops and there was some vague announcement of womens contracts being awarded last year but plenty of evidence that the players never actually got paid and it was all a PR stunt.

[ZIMDOGGY]

but 20 years from now when people of color may be stripped of the right to vote in places like Georgia or Texas, it might seem more profound.

Why do you think this would happen?
It’s way more likely the opposite happening.