The International Cricket Council (ICC) has announced the creation of a monetary fund and task force to support the exiled Afghan women’s cricket team, who now reside in Australia.
While many of the specifics of the initiative remain unclear, the cricket boards of Australia, England and India have said they’ll provide “meaningful support” to Afghan players.
It’s a long-awaited pledge that the ICC has been silent on since last week, with the Afghan women’s team having lived mostly in Canberra and Melbourne since the Taliban took over their country in 2021.
In a statement, the ICC said the monetary fund they plan to set up will help ensure the players have the resources needed to be able to continue pursuing the game of cricket.
“This will be backed by a strong high-performance programme that includes advanced coaching, access to world-class facilities and personalised mentorship designed to help the players elevate their game,” the ICC says.
ICC’s Chair Jay Shah said the initiative reflects the organisation’s “dedication to cricket’s global growth and its power to inspire unity, resilience, and hope.”
“The ICC believes this initiative will not only help preserve the sporting careers of Afghan women cricketers but also reinforce the sport’s role as a unifying force that transcends borders and adversity,” Shah said.
It’s been reported that this decision came as a surprise to the Afghan women’s team players, but that they were grateful for the support.
One of the key figures in the team’s relocation, Dr Catherine Ordway told the ABC: “We’d been, of course, calling for it for three years, to have recognition for the Afghan women around the world who aren’t able to play cricket. So to have this financial support and recognition … was absolutely thrilling.”
While an exact budget for the ICC’s initiative is yet to be finalised, an anonymous source from the organisation told the Sydney Morning Herald that the team would not be under-resourced. “We just have to work out what’s needed,” the source said.
The ICC’s announcement means the Afghan women cricketers will no longer be tied to the Afghan Cricket Board (ACB), which currently funds the men’s team. An ICC spokesperson confirmed to ESPN Cricinfo that the new initiative’s funding would not be taken away from the sum already given to the ACB (between $17 and $27 million).
Afghanistan’s women and girls have been forbidden from education, sport and most jobs, as the Taliban’s 2021 takeover has been widely described as “gender apartheid”.
There’s been public outcry of a sporting boycott for the Afghan men’s cricket team, however, the women’s team has said they want support for female players to not come at the expense of the men’s team.
Another key figure in the relocation of the women’s team, Mel Jones, a former Australian cricketer and Cricket Australia director, told the Sydney Morning Herald that the players “wanted to make sure [their support] was purely about them having the right to play, and anything about boycotts or bans, they just didn’t want to engage with that”.
The Afghan women’s team played their first game together at Melbourne’s Junction Oval in January. At the time, the players said they saw the game as their first chance to represent Afghanistan and show the world that Afghan women can play cricket.