Afghan refugee cricketers in Australia to play first match since fleeing Taliban

 More than three years after fleeing Afghanistan as the Taliban swept to power, a women's team of refugee cricketers will play an exhibition match in Melbourne on Thursday, hoping it will be a first step on the path to full internationals.

Afghanistan is an established force in the men's game, having reached the semi-finals of last year's T20 World Cup co-hosted by the United States and West Indies.

But women's sport has been disbanded in the country since the Taliban takeover in August, 2021.

The Afghanistan Cricket Board (ACB) had 25 contracted women players in 2020 but most now live in Australia in exile, with others settled in Canada and Britain.

Developing women's cricket in Afghanistan was no picnic before the Taliban, with miniscule funding, security concerns and conservative attitudes holding back its development.

But there were green shoots as girls' teams and tournaments sprung up in the provinces in the wake of the men's rise on the international stage.

The ACB made plans for the contracted women's players to head to the Middle East for their first international tour.

Kabul native Tuba Sangar, a former ACB staffer developing the women's programme, remembers the players showing off their new cricket bats and kits.

"It was an amazing moment for all of us," she told Reuters on Wednesday.

"Playing cricket in Afghanistan was not easy. But there really was a lot of hope that we could develop and compete internationally."

Months later, the players were dumping their cricket gear in a panic as the Taliban stormed Kabul.

One teenage player, Feroza Afghan, burned her kit and spent three months travelling overland with family members before crossing into Pakistan, having to negotiate more than a dozen internal checkpoints.

Sangar also left in a hurry with other female staff working at the ACB. She resettled in Canada via Kuwait and is now a community support worker for a non-profit in Ontario province.

Australia played a big role in helping the women's cricketers evacuate along with football players and other athletes.

The government issued humanitarian visas and arranged for them to board planes out of Kabul.

The sport's national federation Cricket Australia has facilitated Thursday's match at the Junction Oval in Melbourne which has the Afghanistan XI playing a team arranged by Cricket Without Borders, a non-profit supporting the women's game.

Captained by Nahida Sapan, it will be the first time the Afghan women have competed as a team since leaving the nation.

Though cricket's global governing body, the International Cricket Council, recognises Afghanistan as a full member and funds its cricket board, the exiled women remain unfunded.

The Australia-based cricketers play for local clubs.

Cricket Australia (CA) boss Nick Hockley said this week he hopes the Afghan women can play more games as a team and eventually represent the country on the international stage.

CA will not schedule international matches against the men's team, though, on moral grounds, citing "deteriorating human rights" for women and girls in Afghanistan.

The policy has drawn accusations of hypocrisy given Australia will play Afghanistan at World Cups and other major global tournaments when prestigious trophies are at stake.

CA's stance also leaves Sangar cold.

"I believe that cricket should not suffer for politics," she said.

"I don't believe that's the right decision.

"If you ask any Afghanistan woman how they got into cricket, they will say it was from watching the men and being inspired."