The Taliban have mentioned they won’t intervene with the Afghan males’s nationwide cricket workforce, the nation’s largest sporting success of latest years, or cease the growth of the flagship Twenty20 league, an Afghan cricket official mentioned.
The destiny of rather more modest ladies’s cricket programmes, nevertheless, stays unclear.
Regardless of the turmoil attributable to the beautiful fall of the Kabul authorities on Sunday, the board has confirmed a one-day sequence in opposition to Pakistan will go forward in Sri Lanka subsequent month and mentioned it was increasing the “Shpageeza” Twenty20 league competitors.
“The Taliban don’t have any issue or problem with cricket, and they have told us that we can continue our work as planned,” mentioned Afghanistan Cricket Board head of media operations Hikmat Hassan, including that the workforce was prepared for 3 one-day matches in opposition to Pakistan subsequent month.
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“We have completed our two training camps in Kabul and we have sponsors, a production team, and even the kit ready.”
Hassan additionally mentioned the workforce ought to have the ability to play within the Twenty20 World Cup within the United Arab Emirates in October-November.
“We are confident we will be able to take part and will be preparing for it over the coming weeks. I don’t think there will be a problem,” Hassan mentioned.
Throughout their earlier spell in energy, the hardline Islamist motion banned most public entertainments however they’ve by no means had a specific downside with cricket, a sport many Afghans discovered in refugee camps in Pakistan in the course of the 1980s and 1990s.
Since then, the sport has exploded in recognition in Afghanistan. Gamers similar to spin bowler Rashid Khan or big-hitting batsman Mohammad Nabi have turn out to be world stars of the sport, lighting up Twenty20 internationals and different showpiece competitions just like the Indian Premier League (IPL).
Afghanistan’s personal home model of the IPL, the “Shpageeza Cricket League” (SCL), a contest named after the Pashto-language phrase for a six, added two extra franchises on Thursday and shall be performed between September 10-25, the board mentioned.
“Given the current problems in Afghanistan, it is an opportunity to bring the country together, bring some joy to the people and put on a remarkable spectacle,” Hassan mentioned.
He mentioned the board hoped that stars like Rashid Khan, one of many world’s top-rated Twenty20 bowlers, would come residence to play within the competitors, simply forward of the World Cup.
One space which stays unsure is the way forward for the ladies’s cricket programmes run by the ACB, which at the moment has 25 contracted feminine cricketers and a number of other programmes for ladies.
The Taliban have mentioned that they are going to respect ladies’s rights underneath Islamic regulation however they haven’t given any clear indication of how they are going to deal with ladies’s sports activities.
Of their earlier spell in energy, they stopped most ladies and women from working or going to highschool and made them put on burqas to exit, and even then solely when accompanied by a male family member.
