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Scotland Suspends Bilateral Cricket Ties with AfghanistanSports
Cricket Scotland will no longer schedule bilateral matches against Afghanistan outside ICC events, citing the Taliban’s treatment of women and girls.
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Cricket Scotland has announced it will no longer arrange bilateral cricket against Afghanistan outside International Cricket Council events, saying the decision reflects concern over the treatment of women and girls under the Taliban government and the wider human rights situation in the country.
Under the new policy, Scotland will not proactively schedule bilateral series or take part in tri-series involving the Afghanistan men’s team. It will also stop hosting or joining pre-tour training camps, practice matches and warm-up fixtures against Afghanistan outside ICC competitions. Matches required by ICC tournament regulations will still go ahead, and the board said playing those fixtures should not be read as an endorsement of the Afghan regime or its policies.
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The two sides have not met in a full international since the 2021 T20 World Cup, although they have still met in warm-up matches at ICC events.
The board began reviewing its engagement with the Afghanistan Cricket Board earlier this summer. The review followed a request from the Afghan board to use training facilities in Scotland before Afghanistan’s tour of Ireland, a request that was turned down because of short notice and a lack of suitable venues, and an approach about Scottish players taking part in the planned Afghanistan Premier League T20 tournament.
Opening batter George Munsey was the only Scottish player picked in the league’s draft last week. Cricket Scotland said it would issue him a no-objection certificate if the ICC formally sanctions the competition, adding that a player’s participation would not amount to an endorsement of the current Afghan regime.
A stand shared with Australia and England
Scotland is the third board to take this position, after Cricket Australia and the England and Wales Cricket Board, both of which have also avoided bilateral fixtures against Afghanistan on similar grounds. It is the first Associate member nation to do so. Afghanistan has been a Full Member of the ICC since 2017, even though it has not funded a women’s national team or built the development structures for women’s cricket that membership normally requires.
The board said the policy would be reviewed every year, or sooner if the ICC makes a significant decision or if conditions on the ground change materially. It added that the freeze would stay in place unless there is a material change in the circumstances around Afghanistan women’s cricket and wider human rights considerations.
Since the Taliban returned to power in 2021, women’s sport in Afghanistan has effectively disappeared, and experts have described the restrictions placed on women and girls as gender apartheid. Meanwhile, the Afghanistan Refugee Women’s XI, made up largely of players based in Australia, toured England earlier this summer, and the ICC has set out a roadmap that could allow the refugee women’s team to compete in its international events by 2030.
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