‘Definitely an issue for ICC at the moment’: ICC Chairman Barclay on restarting women’s cricket in Afghanistan

Durban: Ever since the Taliban regime took over Afghanistan in 2021, the women’s cricket in the country has been staring at a near-uncertain future, especially with a ban on university education and schooling beyond sixth grade, visiting parks, shunted from various jobs and beauty salons being shut down.

Though the International Cricket Council (ICC) Board set up a working group in November 2021 to review cricketing activities in Afghanistan, nothing concrete has come out in terms of restarting women’s cricket in the country despite meetings with various stakeholders.

ICC Chairman Greg Barclay admitted that restarting it is “definitely an issue” for cricket’s global governing body at present.

“We (the ICC Board) have recognised that it’s a pretty difficult situation in Afghanistan. The position there obviously doesn’t run in with ICC’s stated intentions to run a totally inclusive and diverse type organisation. We’ve got one member that, through no fault of their own, has had regulation imposed on them, which means that they are simply incapable of playing or supporting women’s cricket at the moment.

In the last set of board meetings, there was a renewed focus on what needed to be done to support the members to help them fast track that. We accept that we can’t influence or change the laws of the country,” said Barclay in a select virtual media interaction at the conclusion of the ICC Annual Conference in Durban, South Africa.

When the Taliban took over Afghanistan, many women cricketers fled the country. As of now, Afghanistan is the only nation among ICC’s Full Members to not have a women’s team in any age group.

“But we are looking to re-establish a framework that will support in getting women’s cricket up and running in the country, together with looking at what steps might be taken to perhaps look at coercing the board and maybe those around it to do better in terms of restoring women’s cricket, which of course was being played in the country until they had the change of regime. That is much I can say, but it’s definitely an issue for the ICC at the moment and the one we continue to try and work through,” added Barclay.

On Thursday, ICC made a landmark announcement by equalling prize money for men’s and women’s teams at global events. The decision meant the ICC Board fulfilled its commitment to reaching prize money equity by 2030 well ahead of schedule, which delighted CEO Geoff Allardice.

“It is a landmark decision. We had mooted to have genuine parity put in place by 2030. So, I am delighted, and so is the board, that we’ve managed to fast forward that by six years, and it’s the right thing to do. This organization values inclusivity and equity. So equalizing gender pay and reaching parity is absolutely the right thing to do.”

Teams will now receive equal prize money for the equivalent finishing position at various global events like 50-over and 20-over World Cups, U19 World Cups, as well as the same amount for winning a match in any of those events.

Asked if there is some sentiment about parity in players salaries in member nations, something which India and New Zealand have done already for their international players in terms of match fees, Allardice replied in the affirmative.

“I think there is general movement in that direction. At the ICC, we can control what the things are around our events. One of the things to transfer funds to players is through prize money and the parity has two elements to it — one, finishing first in Men’s Cricket World Cup will get the same prize money as finishing first in Women’s Cricket World Cup,” the ICC Chairman said.

“Also, the amount of winning each match in a comparable tournament will be the same as well. So, these two elements are going to be equal. In terms of member’s salaries, this move has been in the making in the last few years — in getting greater parity within members. But at this stage, the ICC Board has decision making power over the amount of money distributed to the members,” he added.

Barclay also felt that nations are now willing to bring pay parity in their players’ match fees and later in salaries.

“There is certain indication that member boards are moving quite quickly over addressing the pay issue too and engineer some level of paying parity. They are not all at the same place and they are not all moving at the same pace. But I can see strong willingness to reach that point – some are moving more quickly than others towards it,” he said.

–IANS