Cricket Australia boss backs players to express own views on facing Afghanistan
Cricket Australia boss backs players to express own views on facing Afghanistan
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Cricket Australia chief executive Nick Hockley says he would support Australia’s men’s players if any wished to express their own views on Afghanistan and whether they should continue to play the Taliban-controlled nation in World Cups and other ICC tournaments.
![[Firoza Amiri and Nahida Sapan of Afghanistan XI at Junction Oval]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/3d2a32436d71dacdcda15e74e97cf05903cd44cb/0_131_5072_3043/master/5072.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
An Afghanistan women’s XI will take on a team representing Cricket Without Borders, an initiative developing women’s opportunities in cricket, in an exhibition at Junction Oval in Melbourne on Thursday to raise awareness of the plight of women facing persecution under the Taliban.
The match comes less than a month before the Australia men’s team plays Afghanistan in the ICC Champions Trophy. Cricket Australia maintains a policy of meeting their scheduling requirements in ICC tournaments but not playing bilateral series with their counterparts from the Afghanistan Cricket Board.
The continued presence of the Afghanistan team in men’s ICC competition has sparked criticism internationally, and 160 English MPs signed a letter this month calling for England to boycott their match in the Champions Trophy, which gets underway next month in Pakistan.
Australia’s assistant foreign affairs minister Tim Watts said his government “will not allow the current situation in Afghanistan to become the new normal” and will continue “to speak out in favour of the human rights of women and girls”. Hockley said that although he believes Cricket Australia is doing enough on the issue, he would support players in Pat Cummins’ team expressing their own views, as the organisation has done in previous cases such as Usman Khawaja’s advocacy for the human rights of Palestinians.
