🏏 Cricket: Afghan women cricketers get to play another innings

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💰 The richest cricket boards to the rescue

At the time of the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan back in 2021, after the shambolic U.S. withdrawal, there was no clarity on what this would mean for the nation’s mens cricket team. This was particularly critical considering that cricket is not only fiercely popular in the country, Afghans are remarkably good at the game, having carved out a niche for themselves at an international level as entertaining giant killers. Case in point: at the 2023 ODI World Cup, Afghanistan won four out of their nine matches, including defeating the reigning champions England, and coming very close to winning five matches and qualifying for the semis. In the 2024 T20 World Cup, Afghanistan made it to the semi-finals.

So back in 2021 when the Taliban announced that the mens cricket team will be allowed to continue playing and participating internationally, the writing was pretty much on the wall for the women’s team. Not just women cricketers, but women athletes in general have since evacuated and escaped out of Afghanistan towards Canada, Europe, and Australia. For all intents and purposes, the women’s team no longer existed.

This created administrative, moral, and legal issues:

1. The rules for the International Cricket Council (the global cricketing governing body) stipulate that for membership within the council, boards must organise both a mens and a women’s national team. With the Taliban banning any such developments, the bylaws state that the Afghanistan Cricket Board (ACB) must be removed from the ICC, and players must not be allowed to participate in ICC sanctioned cricket.

2. However, for close to a decade, if not longer, Afghanistan’s home ground and training grounds have been in India because of the ongoing security situation in Afghanistan. No international cricket has ever been played in Afghanistan.

3. Despite this handicap, Afghanistan’s mens team are not only cricketing box office, they are also pursued by lucrative cricket leagues around the world.

4. Which means that if the ICC were to disbar the Afghanistan cricket team from the sport, the game would suffer, as would the players and administrators who, frankly speaking, have no decision making power in the current Afghan political set up. It would be a case of punishing cricketers for the sins of their (not officially recognised) government.

5. Ultimately, this would not help Afghanistan’s women cricketers in any meaningful way.

So finally, this week, the three richest cricket boards in the world (from India, England, and Australia) have decided to band together to support the exiled female cricketers with funds to help them get coaching and mentorship.

In this week’s issue of Signpost, we’ll look at how the news was announced through official channels (the ICC website) and how it was reported on the largest cricket website in the world (Cricinfo).

Though we usually analyse the news sources alphabetically, for this issue we will start with the ICC website first, before moving onto the news report, allowing us to analyse how stories travel from press release to news reporting.

🎉 OFFICIAL ICC WEBSITE: ICC announces initiative to support Afghan women cricketers [link]

📢 What the ICC is saying
Much of the ink spilled is spent on celebrating this one-of-a-kind initiative announced by the ICC in partnership with the Indian, English, and Australian cricket boards. Towards the end, the article also sneaks in a few other ICC updates that are not related.

1. 📸 Visuals

There are two visuals in the article. The first one, right at the top, is a picture of 13 suited men standing with their hands mostly in front of them. While it is not specified who these men are, it can be understood that the men are the heads of their respective cricketing boards. At the centre of the photo is the ICC Chair, Jay Shah.

The 13 men are standing behind a long table, so their legs are not visible. On the table in front of them are various iPads, files, papers, bottles of water, glasses, microphones, cables, and other stationery. It can be assumed that this is a meeting room, and this photo has been taken at the end of the meeting. The location of the meeting room is not mentioned. Seven of the men are wearing matching ties.

The second visual is an embedded Instagram post from ICC Chair Jay Shah announcing the same. The visual shows him smiling broadly, in a light shirt and dark blue suit, and frameless glasses. He is looking directly at the camera but his body is turned towards his right. He is clearly happy.

2. ✍🏽 Words

The first word in the headline mentions the ICC, with the headline quickly summarising the announcement for readers. The brief subheading mentions how the ICC will be ‘joining forces with three cricket boards’ as part of this initiative. The article proper starts once again with mentioning the full form of the ICC (International Cricket Council) before reiterating the announcement of a ‘dedicated task force aimed at supporting displaced Afghan women cricketers’.

The three cricket boards are mentioned next, beginning with the ‘Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB), and Cricket Australia (CA)’. The words ‘meaningful support’ and ‘landmark initiative’ follow.

Further detail is provided about the ‘dedicated fund’ that will be set up to finance this initiative, which includes the backing of a ‘high-performance programme’. This is followed by statements from the ICC Chair Jay Shah, who talks about being ‘deeply committed’ and ‘proud’ to ‘launch this task force and support fund’ to ‘ensure displaced Afghan women cricketers can continue their journey’. This statement is followed by a line about how the ICC is a ‘unifying force that transcends borders and adversity’. The article ends with some other updates from the board meeting around financial statements and appointments.

❓ What it means
The sequence of boards named as part of the partnership is telling — it begins with the Indian board, followed by the English board, and finally the Australian board. This is unique because a lot of the Afghan women cricketers who fled from Afghanistan ended up in Australia. Yet the reason for the Indian board’s name coming first is three-fold:

1. The BCCI is the richest cricket board in the world, by far. Some estimates put the Indian board bringing in almost 40% of all global cricketing revenue.

2. The BCCI has been supporting the Afghan cricket teams for years with facilities and training.

3. The current ICC Chair, Jay Shah, was the last head of the BCCI.

There are no details on the actual functioning of the task force or fund. And let’s also not forget that the article is riddled with images of men in suits discussing women’s cricket. Which reflects a greater reality within the sport — historically, all revenue generation, administration, and support and growth in the sport was anchored to the men’s teams. Since Covid, cricket has seen a greater push towards women’s cricket that has resulted in India launching a women’s cricket league (which is smaller and less lucrative than the equivalent men’s league), joining others around the world. Overall, the women’s game is at a critical junction where many firsts, albeit delayed, are being delivered under the guise of pioneering efforts.

⚠️ Why it matters
The Taliban banned women’s cricket in 2021, and it is only now in 2025 that the ICC is doing something official about it. By all accounts they are very late in engaging with a situation that required leadership and effort very early. Valuable time has been lost, and the Afghan women’s team is now forced to be grateful that something is happening, rather than being left out in the cold.

The entire article positions the development as a ‘landmark’ initiative. And, technically, this is accurate. Nothing like this has existed before, but also desperate times call for desperate measures.

🤍 CRICINFO: ICC to formally support Afghan women cricketers [link]

📢 What Cricinfo is saying
The article covers the announcement in the same way as the official ICC website, but it also provides increased context on the current situation around Afghanistan’s women cricketers, including existing efforts supported by statements from cricket board chiefs.

1. 📸 Visuals

There is one autoplaying video at the top of the article that shows news being discussed by Cricinfo correspondants. Following this, halfway through the article is an image of the Afghan women cricketers in Melbourne, Australia, getting ready to play their first game since they were forced to escape from Afghanistan.

It’s a team photo, with the team standing side-by-side in two rows. The front row shows the team kneeling on one knee, with the back row standing behind them. All the women are in dark blue full-sleeved tshirts, black tracks, and white sneakers. There are 16 athletes in the photo, and only one of them does not have her hair covered by a scarf. The rest are all wearing black scarves, and all athletes wear a dark blue cap that matches their tshirts. At the centre of the photograph is a caucasian man, possibly Australian, in a black suit and white shirt. They are all posing on a cricket field, with buildings, trees, and a scorecard visible behind them.

2. ✍🏽 Words

The headline uses the phrase ‘formally support’ when referring to the ICC’s latest initiative, before summarising the development in the subtitle. The article then uses the first two paragraphs to summarise the story, including the partnership with the BCCI, ECB, and CA. This is followed by a statement from Jay Shah.

The article then proceeds to provide some context.

Referencing the return of the Taliban in 2021, the article mentions how ‘women have been forced to adhere to an increasingly restrictive range of laws’, especially around sports. However, the article also points out how prior to the Taliban taking power, ‘the Afghanistan Cricket Board (ACB) had agreed to contract 25 women players, most of whom now live in exile in Australia’.

This is followed by an update on how in 2024, members of the women’s team ‘wrote to the ICC asking to be recognised as a refugee team’. This was followed by a cricket match played in January of this year between an ‘Afghanistan women’s XI’ and a ‘Cricket Without Borders team in Melbourne’. Short statements from the chief executives of the CA and the ECB follow (including a mention of the ECB’s contributions to the Global Refugee Cricket Fund), ending with how the ICC has been under pressure to ‘act against Afghanistan from the governments of some Full Member countries’, as the ICC has ‘not taken any action’ against the existing Afghan men’s team. This is further emphasised by how in March of this year, Human Rights Watch, an independent NGO, ‘called on the ICC to suspend Afghanistan’s membership’ by banning them from playing any international cricket.

❓ What it means
Here we have a perfect example of the difference between a press release and a news report.

For one, we learn that the current exiled women cricketers are based in Australia, and have been trying to train for and play the sport that they love. We also understand that attempts have been made by the cricketers to officially be recognised by the ICC as a refugee team, and that Cricket Australia have been actively involved in getting the Afghan women’s team up and running.

We also learn about the pressures faced by the ICC on taking official action. For four years the ICC has essentially maintained a suspended status with regards to the Afghanistan Cricket Board (ACB), despite it not fulfilling the requirements of the laws of the council. At some point, it likely became unfeasible to continue in this way. And that point seems to have come now, four years later.

⚠️ Why it matters
Cricinfo, which is the world’s largest cricket website, is headquartered in India. Which wasn’t always the case, as it was initially launched in the UK as a very early 1990’s website (or whatever existed as websites in those days). Since India is now the only major mass market for cricket in the world, even the reporting nexus has moved there, following the money.

However, the full name of the website is now ESPNcricinfo. Yes, the world’s largest cricket website is owned by ESPN, which means it’s owned by the Disney corporation. Which means it is American owned. In the context of this story it may not be terribly relevant, but it helps to understand the lay of the land and power dynamics in the sport of cricket.

WHAT’S GOING ON? 

🎲 Playing the game

There are several political, economic, and cultural elements in play here. Some countries do not like getting pulled into the internal politics of others, while others are quite happy to lecture and dictate terms. Some boards are making more money than everybody else combined, while others are barely able to support their own teams and host matches.

This is obviously not exclusive to cricket. In fact, this is a reality for most global sports. And controlling the narrative becomes even more critical in understanding how the rest of the world, especially paying fans, view the situation and decide where their loyalties lie.

Does this development mean that the Afghan women’s cricket team will finally be able to compete as a national team on the international stage again? Or will they instead be subjected to playing their game as a refugee team, like the Refugee Olympic Team at the Olympics? Will they even be allowed to play at all?

The truth, as always, is somewhere in between.
Read widely. Question thoroughly. Decide accordingly.

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Was this forwarded to you? Signpost is a free weekly newsletter analysing what the media says, what it means, and why it matters. It’s free to subscribe. Alternatively, you can add me on LinkedIn.