It’s been three years since Afghanistan’s women cricketers escaped the Taliban. While determined to stay together, they are frustrated nothing has come of their pleas to play.
A checkpoint just outside Torkham, on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, late in 2021. It is about a month since the Taliban resumed control of Afghanistan.
In 2020, Afghanistan’s cricket board awarded contracts to 25 female players. Within a year, females could no longer play sport under Taliban rule. Another side effect of the circuitous route taken was that about half the players settled in Canberra, with the rest moving to Melbourne, where the soccer players all came to be based.
“I’ve played for different clubs, and Dandenong has been the most welcoming club for me, it’s a nice team, my coaches are very good as well,” Firooza says. “But it is the dream to play for one team together. That’s why we started playing cricket, we want to represent Afghanistan. Other countries have a national team and we want to be part of this world. Nothing can break us, we will keep going.”
“We want to train together, make a team for Afghanistan and represent Afghanistan for a national team or a refugee team. We just want to have a team and show the world we also can play cricket as women. That’s our dream and goal, to represent our country like others do.”So far, despite entreaties to the International Cricket Council, they have not been able to.
“Building some routine and focus through football was clearly a big part of trying to support them. It wasn’t that simple though to get the team playing and training in a structured way. How do you fund and stand up a competitive team in weeks? Community sport is complex at the best of times, so working around politics and regulations and infrastructure was all pretty daunting.
Some Australian sides have overplayed their closeness when cliques and fissures clearly existed. But the uniting element of it all is the chance to play together – a cricket team is, in the end, assembled above all other reasons to play the game.
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