Afghanistan cricket slams Australia for canceling ODIs

Afghanistan cricket officers blasted Australia’s determination on Thursday to cancel their males’s one-day worldwide cricket collection.

Cricket Australia cited latest heavier restrictions on girls’s rights in Afghanistan by the Taliban authorities for axing the three ODIs in March within the United Arab Emirates.

The Afghanistan Cricket Board stated it was “extremely disappointed and saddened by the pathetic statement” from Cricket Australia and it will complain to the International Cricket Council.

It accused CA of prioritizing political pursuits over truthful play and sportsmanship, undermining the integrity of the sport, and damaging the connection between the 2 international locations.

“Cricket has played a significant role in promoting unity and national pride in Afghanistan,” the board stated. “After years of war and conflict, cricket has helped to bring people together and provide a sense of normalcy to the country. It has also been an important source of hope and inspiration for all Afghans, particularly young people.”

It stated it will rethink the participation of Afghan gamers within the Big Bash League if the choice was not reversed.

Afghan quick bowler Naveen ul Haq Murid referred to as scrapping the collection “childish” and accused Australia of taking away Afghans’ solely purpose for happiness as a substitute of being supportive.

When Kabul fell to the Taliban in 2021, girls had been banned from enjoying sports activities on the grounds that doing so would contravene Islamic legal guidelines requiring their hair and pores and skin to be lined.

Recent Taliban restrictions on girls’s and women’ schooling, employment alternatives and their means to entry parks and gymnasiums had been cited by Cricket Australia for dropping the lads’s ODIs following session with the Australian authorities and different teams.

“CA is committed to supporting growing the game for women and men around the world, including in Afghanistan, and will continue to engage with the Afghanistan Cricket Board in anticipation of improved conditions for women and girls in the country,” CA stated.

Australia gave related causes for axing a one-off take a look at match in opposition to Afghanistan in Hobart, Australia, in November 2021.

In December, the Taliban banned girls from finishing larger schooling, having prohibited attendance at gyms and parks a month earlier.

Women are additionally banned from attending college past the sixth grade and dealing most jobs outdoors of their houses.

In November 2021, the ICC fashioned a working group aiming to help and evaluate girls’s and males’s cricket in Afghanistan however greater than a yr later, the nation stays the one full member of the ICC and not using a absolutely operational girls’s staff. Afghanistan can also be the one full member not represented on the Under-19 Women’s T20 World Cup in South Africa beginning this week.