ICC annual meeting – ICC decides to set aside part of ACB’s revenue to support women players in Afghanistan

Funding prospects for Afghanistan women’s cricket could be raised at the ICC’s annual meetings in Colombo this weekend, as the global body comes under increasing pressure to act on the Afghanistan Cricket Board’s (ACB) inability to put together a women’s team.

A number of boards, including Cricket Australia (CA) and New Zealand Cricket (NZC), are believed to be willing to discuss such possibilities at the ICC Board meeting on Sunday. The proposal involves setting aside a percentage of the annual income distributed to Afghanistan by the ICC as a Full Member, to be spent – or saved – mainly in relation to Afghanistan women’s cricket.

The letter was sent after Afghanistan’s men’s team reached their first-ever international semi-final at the T20 World Cup 2024, and praises the men’s success and the fact that the ACB cannot recognize the women’s team because of the Taliban. limited policies. Since the Taliban returned to power in August 2021, women’s rights in the country have been hit hard, as secondary education and work, as well as sports, have been denied to them.

The 17 women cricketers have asked the ICC to recognize them as a refugee team managed by the East Asian cricket office based in Cricket Australia.

Any such discussions in the ICC boardrooms will come with difficulties, however, given that there is little basis for such a position. The ICC’s annual revenue distribution to members does not specify how much they should spend on women’s cricket, so finding the right percentage to set aside can be a challenge.

But to whom the money is directed will be another question. Although the 17 women who wrote to the ICC are believed to be players contracted by the ACB in November 2020, the ICC has yet to officially recognize them as such. And they can’t give them official status, because as a member body, the ICC relies on individual boards to bring together and honor the teams.

In any case, these are all questions after such a proposal has been agreed upon. Whether this will happen is by no means a given, as not all boards view the issue the same way. There are, for example, board directors who take a sympathetic view of the ACB’s inability to act against the Taliban government that runs the country.