Afghanistan Women’s Cricket Team to Play First Match Since Taliban Takeover in Melbourne

A team of Afghan women cricketers, now refugees in Australia, will unite for a historic match in Melbourne this January—their first as a group since fleeing Afghanistan after the Taliban took control in 2021. The T20 exhibition game, set between an Afghanistan Women’s XI and a Cricket Without Borders XI, will be held at Junction Oval on January 30, preceding the floodlit Women’s Ashes Test at the MCG.

The players, who now reside in Canberra and Melbourne, left Afghanistan under difficult circumstances and have since joined local cricket clubs, though they have yet to form a unified representative team. This match has been organized with support from the Australian government.

“Many people across cricket and the community have come together to provide support for members of the Afghanistan women’s team since their relocation to Australia,” said Cricket Australia CEO Nick Hockley. “This match will be a celebration of that work and their ambition to play together.”

Earlier this year, 17 Afghan women who were contracted by the Afghanistan Cricket Board in 2020 appealed to the ICC to support the formation of a refugee team in Australia. “Our goals are to develop our talent, give hope to women still in Afghanistan, and highlight the challenges Afghan women face,” they wrote. “We aim to compete at the highest levels, recruit new talent, and show the world the victories Afghan women can achieve with ICC support.”

Coinciding with this announcement, Cricket Australia has partnered with UNICEF Australia in the “Until Every Girl Can Play” campaign, promoting gender equality in sports.