Australia cancels Afghanistan cricket series over curbs on women

Australia pulls out of upcoming one-day collection within the UAE citing ruling Taliban’s strikes to additional limit girls’s rights.

Australia cricket
Australian staff celebrates Take a look at collection win in opposition to South Africa at Sydney Cricket Floor [File: Jaimi Joy/Reuters]

Australia’s males’s staff has withdrawn from their One-Day Worldwide (ODI) collection in opposition to Afghanistan in March following additional restrictions on girls’s and women’ rights imposed by the Taliban, Cricket Australia (CA) stated.

Australia and Afghanistan have been scheduled to play three ODIs within the United Arab Emirates however CA scrapped the collection after “intensive session” with stakeholders, together with the Australian authorities.

“This choice follows the current announcement by the Taliban of additional restrictions on girls’s and women’ training and employment alternatives and their potential to entry parks and gymnasiums,” CA stated in a press release on Thursday.

“CA is dedicated to supporting rising the sport for men and women around the globe, together with in Afghanistan, and can proceed to interact with the Afghanistan Cricket Board in anticipation of improved situations for girls and women within the nation.

“We thank the Australian authorities for its assist on this matter.”

The collection shaped a part of the Worldwide Cricket Council’s (ICC) Tremendous League, the place the highest eight groups routinely qualify for the 2023 World Cup. Australia have already certified for the match.

Australia have been scheduled to play a Take a look at match in opposition to Afghanistan in November 2021 however the fixture was postponed after the Taliban seized energy in August of that yr.

Afghanistan stay the one ICC full-member nation with no girls’s staff. They've continued to seem at ICC occasions because the Taliban takeover, nevertheless, and confronted Australia throughout final yr’s Twenty20 World Cup.

ICC Chief Govt Geoff Allardice has stated Afghanistan’s lack of dedication to girls’s cricket is a priority for the game’s international governing physique and that the matter can be mentioned at its subsequent board assembly.

“Our board has been monitoring progress because the change of regime,” Allardice stated. “It's a concern that progress shouldn't be being made in Afghanistan and it’s one thing our board will contemplate at its subsequent assembly in March. So far as we're conscious, there isn’t exercise for the time being.”

Australia will forfeit 30 competitors factors for the collection, which go in direction of World Cup qualification. However they've already secured computerized qualification to the 50-over match in India in October.

The Taliban regained Kabul’s management in mid-2021 and instantly positioned restrictions on feminine participation in sports activities.

The brand new rulers additionally barred teenage women from secondary faculties and final month banned girls from attending universities, prompting international outrage. Girls have additionally been excluded from parks and gymnasiums.

Extra not too long ago, girls have been advised they might now not work in Afghanistan’s support sector.

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