England should be allowed to play next month’s cricket game against Afghanistan, the UK culture and sport secretary has said, despite calls for a boycott over the Taliban government’s treatment of women.
Lisa Nandy on Friday backed a decision by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) to allow the game to go ahead, saying that cancelling it would “deny sports fans the opportunity that they love”.
There is growing pressure from MPs for the game to be called off after the Taliban disbanded the Afghanistan women’s cricket team and banned women from public spaces including gyms, parks and hairdressing salons.
Nandy told BBC Breakfast: “I do think it should go ahead. I’m instinctively very cautious about boycotts in sports, partly because I think they’re counterproductive.
“I think they deny sports fans the opportunity that they love, and they can also very much penalise the athletes and the sports people who work very, very hard to reach the top of their game and then they’re denied the opportunities to compete. They are not the people that we want to penalise for the appalling actions of the Taliban against women and girls.”
She added that the UK would not be “rolling out the red carpet” at the event, saying: “When China hosted the Winter Olympics, I was very vocal, many of us were very vocal about making sure that we didn’t send dignitaries to that event, that we didn’t give them the PR coup that they were looking for when they were forcibly incarcerating the [Uyghurs] in Xinjiang.”
England are due to play Afghanistan next month in Pakistan as part of the Champions Trophy. The ECB has said it will not schedule a bilateral series against Afghanistan, but that participation in an international competition such as the Champions Trophy is a matter for the International Cricket Council.
ICC rules require member nations to have a women’s team, but ICC members are reported to believe that allowing the men’s team to compete will help them influence the Taliban for good.
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Despite this, MPs have called on the government to put pressure on the ECB to pull out of next month’s game. The Labour MP Tonia Antoniazzi asked the prime minister in the Commons this week: “Will he please agree to meet his counterparts in South Africa and Australia, and ask them to boycott the games as well?”
Keir Starmer refused to commit to such action, saying: “The Department for Culture, Media and Sport is in touch with our international counterparts on this issue. I welcome the England and Wales Cricket Board making strong representations to the International Cricket Council on Afghanistan’s women’s cricket team.”