England captain Heather Knight has referred to as for the Worldwide Cricket Council to do extra for the Afghanistan ladies’s crew, whom she feels have been “forgotten”.
Feminine participation in sport within the nation has successfully been outlawed for the reason that Taliban’s return to energy in 2021.
Greater than 20 members of their ladies’s cricket crew fled to security in Australia and beforehand asked the ICC to permit them to play as a refugee crew.
The problem has gained additional consideration in latest weeks as UK politicians have written to the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) calling for England’s males to refuse to play in opposition to Afghanistan within the Champions Trophy match in Lahore, Pakistan, on 26 February.
Knight stated the scenario is “complicated” however she hopes to fulfill some members of the Afghanistan facet throughout the ladies’s Ashes collection in Australia, as they’re taking part in in an exhibition match in opposition to a Cricket With out Borders XI on 30 January in Melbourne.
“I feel it is actually good that it is being talked about. Clearly, the scenario in Afghanistan is heart-breaking,” Knight advised BBC Sport earlier than the opening recreation of the Ashes on Saturday (23:30 GMT).
“It is a complicated concern however I feel as a lot as we will publicise the truth that the ladies’s crew are taking part in out right here, we must always give these women a voice as a result of it is a exceptional story that they are truly right here. They managed to get out of an especially dire scenario.
“I feel these women have been forgotten rather a lot. That’s my sincere opinion, which is a extremely unhappy factor. There hasn’t been an enormous quantity of management in the case of Afghan ladies’s cricket crew, so I might like to see them have as a lot media as doable for that match.”
