After years of displacement and fleeing Taliban threats, Afghanistan’s refugee women’s cricket team travelled to Britain and, following a meeting with King Charles III, finally took to the field in Cambridge to show the world that the dreams of Afghan women remain alive.
Nearly five years after the Taliban returned to power and barred Afghan women from education, work and sport, Afghanistan’s women’s cricket team played two historic matches at the famous Fenner’s Ground in Cambridge, England.
Competing under the name “Afghan Women’s XI” because of international restrictions, the team faced the UK Armed Forces Women’s Cricket Team and the Cambridge University Women’s Cricket Club in two Twenty20 matches.
The team’s origins date back to 2010, when Afghan women formed the country’s first national women’s cricket team despite cultural opposition and security threats. But everything changed after Kabul fell in August 2021. The Taliban banned women’s sport and completely shut down the women’s division of the Afghanistan Cricket Board.
Players spent weeks hiding in safe houses, burning national team uniforms and destroying or concealing their bats and medals to avoid being identified by Taliban intelligence.
With support from international organisations and the Australian government, most of the players eventually fled to Pakistan through dangerous routes before being resettled in Australia, Canada and Britain on humanitarian visas, where they restarted training from scratch.
Cricket’s Biggest Contradiction
The matches once again highlighted a major contradiction in world cricket.
Under International Cricket Council (ICC) rules, full member nations are required to have a national women’s team. Yet the ICC continues to recognise the Afghanistan Cricket Board under Taliban control. Afghanistan’s men compete freely in international tournaments, while the women’s team has no official national status and now competes as a refugee side without official funding.
Meeting King Charles
The team’s visit to Britain, which coincided with the Women’s T20 World Cup, included events hosted by Cambridge institutions such as Hughes Hall.
The highlight of the trip was an official meeting with King Charles III at Clarence House in London, seen as a strong gesture of international recognition for the players.
During the meeting, veteran player Shukria Noori presented the King with a cricket bat signed by all members of the team. King Charles praised their courage, saying he was delighted they had been able to continue pursuing the game they loved.
A Voice for Millions of Afghan Women
The players have increasingly become advocates for human rights.
Captain Nahida, who coordinates the team from Melbourne, described the initiative as a movement for change.
Another leading player, Firooza Amiri, said the team now represents millions of Afghan women who have been deprived of their most basic rights under what she described as the Taliban’s system of gender apartheid.
Seventeen-year-old wicketkeeper Ekil Latifi, who was forced to leave her family behind when Kabul fell, said the matches provided an opportunity to stand up for the rights of Afghan women.
For these Afghan women, playing in Cambridge was about far more than cricket. Five years after being forced to destroy their own sporting equipment to protect their lives, every run scored and every wicket taken stood as proof that although the Taliban emptied Afghanistan’s playing fields, they had failed to destroy the hope, talent and identity of Afghan women.
