Why Afghan cricketers should not be punished for Taliban’s conservatism

Afghanistan is an emerging power in international cricket. Its cricketers are prominent names in the T20 cricket leagues that have mushroomed across the globe in the last decade. Due to their sheer cricketing abilities, especially in the spin bowling department, Afghan cricketers like Rashid Khan, Noor Ahmed, Mohammad Nabi, Mujeeb Ur Rehman, among others, are seen as valuable assets for the teams they play for.

All was going well for Afghanistan until the Taliban captured power in Afghanistan in 2021. Despite that, for more than two years, the International Cricket Council or any other cricket board didn’t stop their cricketing ties with Afghanistan.

Last month, Cricket Australia (the apex cricket body in Australia) cancelled its T20 series against Afghanistan, which was scheduled to take place in August this year at a neutral venue in the UAE.

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This was the third time in as many years that Australia has postponed its tour to Afghanistan. In March 2023, Cricket Australia cancelled its scheduled One Day International Series that was scheduled in the UAE as well.

Both times, the reason cited for cancelling the series was Afghanistan’s poor record on human rights, especially the rights of women and girls. However, Australia continues to play Afghanistan in ICC tournaments like the Cricket World Cup. Last year, when the Cricket World Cup happened in India, Australia didn’t refuse to play against Afghanistan.

This time Cricket Australia cited the worsening of conditions under the Taliban regime, which prompted the Australian government to direct its cricket board to scrap the upcoming tour. After cancelling the T20 series last year, this tour was scheduled with the hope that, with time, things would get better in Afghanistan.

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However, as it turned out, things went even south this time. Australia had refused to play Afghanistan for the first time in November 2021, when a Test match was scheduled to take place in Hobart, Australia.

This decision by Australia drew sharp reactions from Afghan cricket stars like Rashid Khan, who plays in Australia’s T20 cricket league called the Big Bash League. He called Australia’s decision to be pathetic and extremely disappointing, as reported by The Guardian newspaper.

Now, the question arises: If Australia has taken a stand on terrorism and against the Taliban regime, would this be reflected in the upcoming T20 Cricket World Cup scheduled to happen in June this year, or would it be like India’s position on playing against Pakistan, where India plays with Pakistan only in ICC tournaments like the World Cup, while bilateral cricketing ties remain scrapped.

The larger question today is: Is this model of playing in multilateral tournaments and saying no to bilateral cricket the new norm? Secondly, if it is, does it solve the larger purpose of boycotting and creating some kind of international pressure, as it did in the case of Apartheid South Africa? The answer is no. Today, international bilateral cricket is shrinking in space, and T20 leagues are taking over the cricketing space. Many prominent cricketers are themselves leaving international cricket to prioritise T20 league cricket to make hefty sums of money, which representing their country in bilateral cricket doesn’t offer. This is the case for most of the cricketing nations, barring India, England, and Australia, who are considered to be the ‘Big 3’ in international cricket.

In such a scenario, Australia boycotting Afghanistan wouldn’t hamper Afghan interests to any noteworthy extent. It doesn’t mean the step taken by Cricket Australia is meaningless. However, when cricketing bodies start pressurising the International Cricket Council to remove a team like Afghanistan from international cricket, it is only then that the interests of future Afghan cricketers would be hampered. However, the current number of players, due to their visibility in T20 leagues, would still be sought after by many teams across the globe.

The idea is not to hamper the cricketing prospects of those born in Afghanistan. This is a counter-argument to those who argue why punish sports and sportspersons for the politics of their government and country. If that were so, the South African-born cricketers during the Apartheid era wouldn’t have been allowed to represent other countries like Australia and England or play top-level first-class cricket, such as English County. The idea is that a nation that is responsible for poor human rights records must not be given recognition and representation as a party at a sporting tournament, which legitimises its position as a moral nation-state in the comity of nations.

It would be interesting to see whether other prominent cricketing nations also follow in Australia’s footsteps or they keep the status quo alive. Today, nobody (except in Afghanistan) would miss an Australia vs Afghanistan series in any format, considering the wide gaps between the two teams’ performances, with Australia being a world champion side and Afghanistan being an emerging player in the cricket arena. Still, the decision of Cricket Australia is not a commercial one but a political one.

To conclude, it doesn’t seem that the Taliban regime would change its ways to get its cricket team incorporated into the international arena. For the Taliban, there is no common ground between their sense of values and the values shared by the Western world. In such a scenario, only human talent suffers….

The writer is a Doctoral Fellow at School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.