Greame West, director of high performance at Cricket Ireland, said that the national team players will have the option of not playing against Afghanistan in their upcoming ODI series in August. The two teams will take on each other in a five-match series in Bready, a village in Northern Ireland and Stormont, Belfast. Female participation in sports was banned in Afghanistan since the Taliban returned to power in 2021. While there has been boycott calls, Cricket Ireland earlier said that they took the decision to go ahead with the series despite ‘moral discomfort’. However, Cricket Ireland will respect any player’s wish to skip the games.
“I think you have to. We have had conversations with both the men’s and women’s teams to gauge opinion. There are concerns, as you would anticipate, but when we had similar conversations with the board and considered all the factors, there is an understanding,” West said, according to BBC.
Earlier, Cricket Ireland CEO Sarah Keane said that hosting the series against Afghanistan carries ‘moral discomfort’ because of the challenges that women face in the country. Keane, who was appointed the first permanent female chief executive of an ICC full member country, added that the decision to procede with the Afghanistan series was not unanimous.
“I want to acknowledge upfront the moral discomfort that I think we all sit with around this decision and how the regime treats women in particular,” Keane said.
However, she explained the reason behind going forward with the series against Afghanistan.
“Forty percent of our board are women – the overall decision was that we would play Afghanistan and take our obligations as a full member very seriously.”
“But I think the main reason also was that people felt very strongly that if we don’t [play the series] the issue kind of goes away, whereas we need to be talking about the displaced Afghan women’s team.”
“They’ve also been invited to [play in] Ireland but I don’t think it will happen this year due to scheduling.”
“It’s incumbent on us to make sure we look to what we can do and it stays an issue for us and we do highlight their plight.”