English cricketers urged to skip Afghan T20 tournament — SkimNews
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- Seven English cricketers — Ollie Pope, Luke Wood, Moeen Ali, Reece Topley, James Vince, Tom Kohler-Cadmore and Laurie Evans — have registered for the inaugural APL draft in October, with the five-team tournament scheduled to begin 27 December in the UAE.
- The ECB's policy of refusing bilateral men's cricket against Afghanistan over Taliban treatment of women does not extend to franchise tournaments, and the board is likely to grant No Objection Certificates provided the ICC sanctions the event.
- The Afghanistan Cricket Board has applied to the ICC to stage the tournament, and that application is currently being considered.
- Labour MP Tonia Antoniazzi, who led a cross-party letter signed by 200 MPs ahead of England's 2025 Champions Trophy meeting with Afghanistan, urged players to think about their "daughters, sisters or mothers" and said continuing to grant Afghanistan full-member status "makes a mockery" of ICC criteria.
- Amnesty International's Felix Jakens told players to consider what message participation sends, noting Afghan women have been banned from sport since 2021 and girls remain barred from education beyond age 11.
- The Afghan women's cricket team has been playing as a refugee team since the Taliban took power, funded by the ICC alongside the ECB, India and Australia — funding extended to 2032 in July.
Why it matters: The ECB refuses bilateral fixtures against Afghanistan over Taliban women's rights but is poised to greenlight the same country's franchise tournament — a policy gap human rights groups say normalizes the Taliban's treatment of women while 200 MPs and Amnesty publicly press players to weigh their platform against a December 27 start date.
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