Teams may refuse to play against Afghanistan in T20 World Cup, feels Tim Paine

Australia Test captain Tim Paine believes the chances of his team playing a one-off Test against Afghanistan scheduled on November 27 in Hobart is not looking good at the moment. Paine’s concerns stem from the fact of The Taliban not allowing women’s team to play cricket. While it has given an assurance on the men’s team, the same cannot be said about the women’s team.

Paine has also questioned the game’s governing body on this issue. Recently, Cricket Australia chief executive Nick Hockley too expressed his concerns on the historic one-off Test going ahead as per plan. Australia is one of the teams, that have always firmly believed in equal rights for women’s games and the Test going ahead as per plan in Tasmania is now under serious jeopardy.

Paine has pointed toward International Cricket Council (ICC) on their grim silence on this matter ahead of Afghanistan Men’s team participation in the upcoming ICC T20 World Cup which is set to begin in Oman and UAE on October 17. “(The Hobart test) is not looking good, we are in a world of trouble no doubt about that, but the reasoning around it is probably fair enough,” Paine told SEN radio.

“There are probably two levels to it. There’s the cricket aspect to it from an ICC point of view that to be a test-playing nation you have to have an international women’s team, obviously with the Taliban at the moment banning women from playing any sport and that has implications at an ICC level.”

Tim Paine questions Afghanistan women’s team exclusion from the game

Paine further opined that by not allowing women’s team to play, Afghanistan are wiping half of the population, which is ideally not right. “Secondly from a female, human rights point of view, excluding half of your population from trying to do something is not on.”

“I don’t think we want to be associated with countries that are taking things or opportunities off literally half of their population.”

The Australian Test skipper is bemused on how Afghanistan is being allowed to play the upcoming T20 World Cup under such a current situation and wants to hear from the ICC.

“At this stage, we have heard from Cricket Australia, we’ve heard from the Australian government, we’ve heard from the Australian Cricketers Association. But as yet we’ve heard nothing from the ICC, which I think is fascinating given there is a T20 World Cup in a month’s time and at the moment Afghanistan are in that.”

“It will be interesting to see what happens in that space. Does the team get kicked out of the World Cup?

Paine concluded by saying he is not sure how Afghanistan is going to play the ICC event. He also feels that teams may refuse to play against the team in the upcoming marquee event, “I imagine it will be impossible if teams are pulling out against playing against them and governments are not letting them travel to our shores, then how a team like that can be allowed to play in an ICC sanctioned event is going to be very, very hard to see.”