England play Afghanistan at cricket

[ArabellaScott]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/cricket/2025/02/25/england-playing-afghanistan-heralds-day-unmitigated-shame/

Shame on them.

They spout tripe about sport being non political and it builds connections between countries.

Non political for MEN and connections between MEN.

Fuckers.

That's because South African sports teams were largely banned by International governing bodies and only re-admitted to the fold after the fall of the Apartheid regime. Nobody had to boycott because SA didn't participate.

If England had refused to play Afghanistan, the ICC would have booted England from the tournament and Zimbabwe or the Netherlands would have been called in as a replacement, and there's no way a lesser nation would pass up the opportunity to play in an international tournament, so the only thing that would be changed is Afghanistan's opponent, and I don't see why England players should be expected to forego the opportunity to compete in a tournament simply because the ICC can not do the decent thing and ban Afghanistan from participating.

England men should boycott because women's and girls human rights matter more than playing cricket and because they're not the kind of monsters who stand by when atrocities happen.

Though apparently they in fact are the type of monsters who stand by.

Every single man playing and every man or woman facilitating it has a choice here.

It's a stark reminder that if a group such as the Taliban ever took over in this country a lot of men would do nothing.

England boycotting would have achieved nothing.

There is precedent for how the ICC behaves when teams refuse to participate, because similar things happened when Sri Lanka was in the middle of a Civil War, and Pakistan was suffering repeated terror attacks and could not guarantee player security. Several teams refused to travel, and in every instance the ICC's approach was that the tournament or competition would proceed regardless of boycotts.

It also needs to be borne in mind that the ICC isn't particularly concerned with the ECB's view in any case, because it regards England as a practically inconsequential market compared to the Asian one. It's not known sarcastically as the "Indian Cricket Council" for no good reason, so the only outcome of an English boycott would likely be further sanction on English cricket.

Get India boycotting an ICC tournament for political reasons, and then you might give the ICC food for thought, but given that the topic at hand is the rights of women and girls I wouldn't hold out any hope of India doing anything soon, and I don't believe an English boycott would even register with the BCCI.

👏👏👏

As an afghan women, i really cannot see who the boycott would benefit? Its just taking away one more thing that afghan women look forward to.

Just a final point about both the differences and similarities between the former South African and current Afghan situations -

The sporting ban on South Africa arose not because of disgust for domestic South African politics, or because of concern for oppressed people inside South Africa. The South African government made it abundantly clear that Black and minority members of touring teams would not be welcomed in South Africa, and would either be denied entry entirely, or expected to abide by SA's Apartheid laws whilst in the country, so they'd essentially end up being quartered separately from their white teammates, end up eating and travelling separately from their white teammates, using separate bathroom facilities and so on.

Obviously this was completely unacceptable to nations with multi-racial teams and those comprised entirely of players who would have been subject to the Apartheid laws, hence why SA was officially banned by many governing bodies. At no point were actual South African players prevented from plying their trade outside the country itself, because it was also recognised that individual South African sportsmen did not represent the Apartheid government, just as the Afghan cricket team does not represent the Taliban any more than the English team represents the Labour Party.

The Afghan team does not train or play fixtures inside Afghanistan, and some of the players have in the past made a point of reiterating that they play in order to represent the people of Afghanistan, not the Afghan government. No foreign teams travel to play inside Afghanistan, so to that effect, there is some similarity with Apartheid SA, but the reasons the ICC does not schedule fixtures inside Afghanistan are the same reasons they have previously scheduled Pakistan fixtures in the UAE; security concerns, and nothing to do with Pakistani domestic policy.

So in essence, the biggest difference is purely that international governing bodies had the gumption to outright ban SA national teams from participating, meaning that not only did touring teams not have to travel to SA, but they never had to "boycott" anything because SA teams did not participate in International tournaments, even though individual SA sportsmen did continue to play outside SA. This isn't a case of "why did we boycott SA and not Afghanistan" when the "we" in question is individual national teams, because individual national teams were never put in that position thanks to the governing bodies pre-empting that with blanket bans on SA teams.

The reason we still have Afghanistan participating in International tournaments when SA did not is purely and simply down to the ICC not considering domestic politics a reason for blanket bans, and yet this is still consistent with the historic ban on SA because that was not about South Africa's treatment of it's own citizens either, it was about how the SA government proposed to treat visiting sportsmen.

Thank you. That is helpful context and does create a different perspective to the one I had. I would still, personally, have favoured individual teams boycotting to make the point that it is unacceptable to lock up half the population, but I can see the issue from both angles now.

Thanks for useful context and info.

The situation in Afghanistan feels so hopeless and awful, a boycott feels like one tiny way of registering protest. Of signalling to the Taliban that it's not okay to treat women and girls as lesser beings.

Look forward to?

In what sense?

I can’t imagine many men choose to identify as women in Afghanistan. Wait for the women to fight their battles on their own then steal their hard won rights.

@Maaate seeing the match? Like you would look forward to seeing a football game?

I don't think the women in Afghanistan will be watching it

Reported using the form provided. Thanks for sharing.

@Maaate why would they not, as an afghan women i assure you they do. What are your reasons for thinking they wont?

Actually they might even watch it more than men, since they are at home a lot more obviously. My sisters in law really do look forward to it.

Thanks @XDownwiththissortofthingX and @PinkChaires for adding context.

There are still choices to be had. No cricket played in Afghanistan (because it's too dangerous for men). And no women on the team to be prejudiced about. So yes, I do 'get' the difference.

And if England boycotts, they're kicked out and someone else takes their place. So the match goes ahead anyway. Lovely for that country, great PR for them.

But my position still stands. It's foul. It's not right. There is always an excuse or reason to justify why life goes on for men.

Filled in the form and included a request for them to change the discrimination choice to sex not gender. Thank you for the link to the complaints form. Sickening. These poor women.