The incredible story of Afghanistan's exiled women’s cricket team
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. It was a warm night in Kabul. Just days earlier, on August 15th 2021, the Taliban had seized control of the Afghan capital, and with it, the country.
At around 4am Feroza Afghan, then a 17-year-old girl, crept through the silent streets, dodging Taliban soldiers. In all, it took her and her family three months to escape from Afghanistan, via nine hotels and 18 Taliban checkpoints. “If they found us, they would kill us," Ms Afghan recalls.
Her crime? She played cricket. The Afghan regime is surely the world’s most sexist. The Taliban, an Islamist militia that swept to power when President Joe Biden ended military support for a democratic government in Kabul, bar girls from studying beyond sixth grade and women from raising their voices in public.
If a woman steps outside, she must be covered from head to toe. If the morality police spot an infraction, they can punish it in any way they deem “appropriate". All refugees tell tales of the joyless theocracy Afghanistan has become.
But few are as poignant as those of its exiled women cricketers. Around nine months before the Taliban took over, Afghanistan formed its first national women’s cricket team, with 25 players. Nearly all have since fled abroad.
Now scattered across Australia, Canada and Britain, they are fighting a lonely battle to be allowed to represent their country. For them, cricket is not just a game. It is a way of showing that women can make their own choices, rather than meekly obeying the rules laid down by unelected bigots with beards.
Cricket is an unlikely weapon of resistance. Afghanistan's national sport is Buzkashi, a rugged version of polo in which horse-mounted players fight to toss a goat carcass into a goal. But
. Read more on livemint.com
