Opinion: The Afghanistan hypocrisy that shouldn't be ignored

Afghanistan cricket's rapid rise is both a special story in a global sporting context and one with a whole heap of hypocrisy attached to it.

The flag which the Afghanistan cricket team plays under.

Opinion: Afghanistan’s performance at the 2023 Cricket World Cup is what makes sport so special. The unexpected nature of it and the back stories attached to many of the players.

From the wicketkeeper who was a cattle farmer to the all-rounder who was a refugee in Pakistan.

However, if we are willing to remove our fingers from our ears for a moment and open our eyes there is a whole heap of hypocrisy that is worth addressing.

Afghanistan beat defending champions England, arch-rival Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and if it wasn’t for a Mujeeb Ur Rahman dropped catch with Glen Maxwell on 33, it would have also toppled Australia.

That’s on top of the more expected victory over the Netherlands.

When Afghanistan made its first appearance at a World Cup in 2015 it won one game - a one-wicket victory over Scotland. The remainder of the games Afghanistan was largely thrashed.

Eight years on Afghanistan turned itself into a genuine semifinal contender through the round-robin stage of the 2023 Cricket World Cup.

It’s been one of world sport’s most unexpected rises given they have done it while the country was in a state of war before the Taliban seized control in 2021.

Professional sporting organisations tie themselves in knots in an attempt to limit supposed distractions.

But being asked to do a media interview the day before a game isn’t a distraction. Having family in a country that is at war with each other is a distraction.

For a group of players to emerge and achieve what they have done, with all of that playing out, is remarkable. It’s something that those players and the coaching staff should be proud of.

But it would be wrong to simply dress this up as a fairytale sporting story and leave it at that.

We need to address the elephant in the room here.

When the Taliban seized control in Afghanistan in 2021 it set about creating one of the most repressive regimes.

Any inclusiveness that was being fostered in Afghanistan was scrapped.

Women have been ordered to wear face coverings in public, and barred from travelling more than 70 km without a close a male relative.

The Taliban government has also prohibited university education for women and prevented them from working in National Government Organisations.

It also shut down beauty salons and prohibited women's entry into gyms and parks.

The personal stories of forced marriages to abusive husbands are horrifying.

In 2021, when the Taliban seized control, the Taliban’s cultural commission, Ahmadullah Wasiq, told Australian broadcaster SBS women’s sport was considered neither appropriate nor necessary.

“I don’t think women will be allowed to play cricket because it is not necessary that women should play cricket,” Wasiq said.

“In cricket, they might face a situation where their face and body will not be covered. Islam does not allow women to be seen like this.

“It is the media era, and there will be photos and videos, and then people watch it. Islam and the Islamic Emirate [Afghanistan] do not allow women to play cricket or play the kind of sports where they get exposed.”

Earlier this year Cricket Australia took a stand.

The Australian men’s team was scheduled to play three one-day internationals against Afghanistan on neutral ground in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in March. But it boycotted those three ODIs because of the Taliban’s restrictions on women and girls.

“CA is committed to supporting growing the game for women and men around the world, including in Afghanistan, and will continue to engage with the Afghanistan Cricket Board in anticipation of improved conditions for women and girls in the country,” it said in a statement at the time.

But how committed was Cricket Australia to that stand?

They were committed enough to boycott a random three-game series but not committed enough to boycott a World Cup game against Afghanistan.

As it turned out, the two competition points were more important.

This week they did play against Afghanistan in a World Cup game in India which largely turned that moral stance in March into a farce.

The hypocrisy is obvious.

In 1981 the Springbok tour to New Zealand divided the country between those who were happy for the South African rugby tour to go ahead and those who felt a stand needed to be made against the racial segregation in South Africa at that time.

I was only a matter of months old at the time of the tour, but I have read enough and talked to enough people to be aware of the tension it created.

It seems there’s an ever-growing number in the then pro-tour camp who now acknowledge maybe those against it had a point for the wider humanitarian good.

There’s a feeling amongst many that sport and politics should never mix, and I personally often align with that view.

Sport can, and should be, an escape from political matters.

But in the case of the Afghanistan situation is it mixing sport and politics? Or is it a pressing humanitarian matter that cannot be ignored?

You can make up your mind.