Taliban shadow over cricket: Ireland won’t compel players to face Afghanistan in ODI series

Cricket Ireland has made matches against Afghanistan non-mandatory for the players as the European nations get ready to host the Afghan Atlans for a five ODI match series in Bready in August. Afghanistan, which is governed by the Taliban, has outlawed female participation in sports since returning to power in 2021.

Afghanistan is also the only Test-playing nation without an international women's cricket team. As a result of this, Cricket Ireland is not going to take any action against a player if they pull out of the ODI series.

Ireland's ‘moral discomfort’ in playing ODIs vs Afghanistan

This was confirmed by Cricket Ireland's Graeme West to the BBC.

He was asked if Cricket Ireland would respect a player's decision to pull out of the Afghanistan series. To this, he said, "I think you have to - we've had conversations with the male and female teams, just to gauge opinion.

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"There are concerns as you would anticipate, but when we had similar conversations with the board and considered all the factors, there's an understanding."

Meanwhile, Cricket Ireland chief executive Sarah Keane, who is the first permanent female chief executive of an International Cricket Council (ICC) full member nation, said the decision to play an ODI series against host Afghanistan has raised "moral discomfort" in the board.

"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.

Keane added that the Ireland vs Afghanistan series is an opportunity to raise voices against lack of femal participation in sports in 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."