Afghanistan’s most recognisable cricketing face, Rashid Khan, has lastly addressed one of the delicate and intently watched points surrounding the nation’s cricketing future — the standing of ladies’s cricket. As Afghanistan prepares for an additional high-profile look on the worldwide stage, Rashid’s remarks have reignited debate round inclusivity, accountability, and the boundaries of a participant’s affect in a posh political panorama.
Rashid Khan acknowledges significance of ladies’s cricket
Talking forward of Afghanistan’s opening match of the lads’s match in opposition to New Zealand in Chennai, Rashid made it clear that girls’s cricket is a vital a part of being a full member nation in worldwide cricket. Whereas selecting his phrases fastidiously, the star leg-spinner burdened that he takes delight in seeing Afghans symbolize the nation in any type.
Based on Rashid, the presence of a girls’s crew isn’t just symbolic however structural. He acknowledged that girls’s cricket is a part of the factors set by the game’s world governing physique and mentioned it could all the time be a proud second to see Afghan girls competing below the nationwide flag.
“Girls’s crew? Positively. I really feel that’s a part of the factors for being a full member. The ICC and the Afghanistan Cricket Board know greatest, however we like to see anybody representing Afghanistan on any stage. It’s a proud second, and also you’re representing your nation,” mentioned Rashid within the pre-match presser.
His feedback come at a time when Afghanistan’s cricketing achievements on the lads’s aspect proceed to soar, even because the absence of an energetic girls’s crew attracts criticism from followers, gamers, and directors worldwide.
Afghan girls cricketers in exile nonetheless ready for a path ahead
The difficulty has remained unresolved for the reason that Taliban’s return to energy, which pressured a number of Afghan girls cricketers to flee the nation and proceed their careers in exile. Lots of them have publicly spoken concerning the emotional toll of representing Afghanistan with out having the ability to take action formally.
Final yr, girls’s cricketer Firooza Amiri had urged the lads’s crew to make use of its rising affect to assist girls’s cricket. She believed the recognition and world attain of Afghanistan’s male stars might assist draw consideration to the struggles of feminine cricketers and push decision-makers towards motion.
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Rashid factors to limits of participant energy
Whereas expressing ethical assist, Rashid was additionally lifelike concerning the constraints confronted by gamers. He emphasised that selections relating to girls’s cricket are past the management of particular person cricketers and relaxation with the Afghanistan Cricket Board and the Worldwide Cricket Council.
Rashid defined that gamers can solely give attention to acting on the sphere and supporting the sport inside their capability. Bigger structural and political selections, he famous, are dealt with by directors and governing our bodies, who should determine the way in which ahead.
“However sure, finally the choice lies with the Afghanistan Cricket Board and the ICC. As gamers, we don’t have a lot management and may solely give attention to what we will affect. On this scenario, there’s little we will determine, however our assist is all the time there. The larger selections are made by these in cost, they usually take it ahead,” added Rashid.
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