Generally, my approach to life is not to lecture other countries, religions or cultures on how to go about things. But one thing I will say is that the way Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers have treated their women’s cricket team and the way they treat women in general is truly awful.
There is no other word for it. While their best female cricketers are now in hiding in Australia, back home young girls do not receive any kind of education. Women can’t even speak in public!
How the cricket world reacts to this is a very complicated issue, but one thing that is not up for debate is how badly the women of Afghanistan and their sporting teams are being treated. It is a form of gender apartheid.
International Cricket Council rules state that all its member nations must have a women’s team, and the fact that Afghanistan do not have led to calls for England’s men to boycott their Champions Trophy fixture against them in Lahore, Pakistan, next month.
So, what action, if any, should be taken? And by whom? It is a complex situation that reminds me of the one I encountered as England captain 22 years ago, when faced with the dilemma of whether to fulfil a World Cup match versus Zimbabwe in Harare.
There were murmurings about Robert Mugabe’s abhorrent regime in the build-up to the 2003 World Cup and I spoke to Michael Atherton on the outfield before a one-day game against Australia in Melbourne. He advised me to read up on what was happening there.
Nasser Hussain during a press conference as his side prepared to boycott the Zimbabwe game
Hussain admitted many of his players were close to tears as the decision was left to them
Atherton told me to prepare myself because it was the sort of thing that could snowball. It did snowball and to a degree it’s happening here with this Champions Trophy match.
Soon, Tony Blair and the Government were telling us that we shouldn’t go and that was a big game-changer for me, because as England cricket captain you are an ambassador for your country. When your Prime Minister gets involved, it makes you think.
As I say, I have never believed in being too judgmental, as you can get yourself in a real tangle doing so. For example, more than half of the Champions Trophy matches held from next month are being hosted in Pakistan, a country where homosexuality is still a crime.
In 2003 I made it my business to learn about President Mugabe’s treatment of his own citizens and the situation made it crystal clear to me that I didn’t want to be the England captain to take the field in a match like that.
Mugabe was patron of Zimbabwe’s cricket, and was probably going to be there shaking hands pre-match, politicising the presence of England and making it look like we condoned his regime.
I wasn’t willing to shake hands with Mugabe, but there was no official government directive. They were advising rather than ordering the England and Wales Cricket Board not to go, and therein lay a subtle difference.
For their part, the ECB were worried about being fined and facing further repercussions for pulling out of the fixture, as tournament regulations stated the only way you could do so was on the grounds of security and safety concerns.
The situation was further complicated by the fact that Zimbabwe were coming over for a Test series at the start of the 2003 summer. There were lots of financial implications.
Henry Olonga wears a black armband in protest against the Mugabe regime
Andy Flower, who would later be England’s head coach, also protested against the regime
England players were anxious about having to shake hands with Mugabe, as he did with Australia captain Steve Waugh during a match in Harare in 1999
No help was forthcoming from the British Government, our governing body was not taking a stance and the ICC were less than helpful too. In particular, the ICC chief executive Malcolm Speed was completely unmoved by anything we said, repeating constantly that the only reason for us not to travel to Harare was on safety grounds, otherwise we would have to forfeit the points for the match.
So we ended up in a room in a Cape Town hotel, a squad of 15 players and backroom staff, split over what to do next.
Personally, I didn’t want to go. Others shared my view, but there were also some for whom the stakes felt different. It was their World Cup, the culmination of four years of preparation as dedicated white-ball cricketers. This was their chance and losing points would jeopardise their chances of success. Others felt politics and sport shouldn’t mix, that we were sportsmen and we should be playing the games we were picked for.
We went round in circles, but the bombshell was a letter that the ECB had from the Sons and Daughters of Zimbabwe, making death threats. If we were to travel, we would return home in coffins, it promised.
That changed the mood in the camp, and gave me – someone who didn’t want to go down as the England captain who went to Zimbabwe – a get-out clause. In the end, we sort of fudged it. The ICC weren’t accepting our reason for not travelling and we lost the points and ultimately the chance to progress from the group stage.
Looking back, do I wish we had gone? No, definitely not. I’m very proud that we didn’t go, making a statement in the process. I just wish the statement we made had been a bit stronger, and had been on moral grounds.
History would have looked favourably upon us for that, as it has done on Henry Olonga and Andy Flower, the two Zimbabwean cricketers who mourned the death of democracy in their homeland with their black armband protest in their match against Namibia.
As captain and coach of England, myself and Duncan Fletcher had a meeting with the two of them in which they let on what they were going to do. As we left, Duncan, a Zimbabwean himself, turned to me and said: ‘There go two very brave men.’
England have never played a bilateral series against Afghanistan, only ever in ICC World Cups
Jos Buttler’s side have been left with a headache over whether to forfeit their match
What I learned from that episode is that the powers that be – the Government and governing bodies – must make stronger statements. The ECB will argue they have shown their position in not playing Afghanistan in bilateral cricket, only in official tournaments.
But if the old maxim about players playing and administrators administrating is not followed, it will be up to each player to make up their own minds about how happy they are playing against Afghanistan.
Do not overlook the complexities of the situation, though. Back in 2003, I was being asked to go to Zimbabwe. Jos Buttler’s England team are not going to Afghanistan. Mugabe was a figurehead of Zimbabwe cricket. The Taliban has nothing to do with Afghan cricket. They couldn’t care less if England v Afghanistan goes ahead. They won’t change anything if it doesn’t.
A boycott won’t be felt by them, but it might be a gesture appreciated by the women of Afghanistan, knowing someone is actually thinking about them out there in the wider world.
Potentially, those Afghan girls in Australia too, who just want to play cricket. Although the flip side of that is it would remove the one great pleasure they currently have – watching their men’s team playing and enjoying successes like getting through to last year’s Twenty20 World Cup semi-finals.
Not having a women’s cricket team is diabolical, but would preventing the men’s national team from playing make things better? Ban the men’s team and the conversation about the women’s team and their plight drops out of the spotlight. By England playing against the men, the women remain front and centre of the conversation.
Such decisions should not be left in the hands of England players, but I do hope that Buttler and his squad are grown up and vocal about this. I heard England women’s captain Heather Knight give an interview the other day about this situation, and the more people can speak up, showing that we’ve not forgotten about those neglected women, the better.
England’s cricketers are grown men with families – with wives and daughters – who will be knowledgeable about Afghanistan and women’s rights.
Let them air their views. Next week the Afghan women’s team play a match in Australia, and they must be feeling invisible and forgotten. It is up to cricket to take every opportunity to make sure that they are not.
