Cricket Australia’s newly-appointed ethics commissioner is part of the decision-making process which may see the national men’s team refuse to play scheduled ODIs against Afghanistan in March.
Cricket Australia has run the thorny matter of whether the men’s national side should play a scheduled one-day international series against Afghanistan this year past its recently-appointed ethics commissioner as a call beckons on whether the pin should be pulled on the tour.
Under the ICC’s future tours program, the Aussies are scheduled to play three ODIs against Afghanistan in late March, at the tail-end of the four Test and three ODI tour of India which begins in early February.
If played, it’s understood the series would likely be held in the United Arab Emirates, with Afghanistan unsafe to host international cricket and India, which has been a home ground for Afghanistan in the past, busy with Indian Premier League commitments.
But whether the series proceeds is no guarantee. Afghanistan’s emergence as a globally competitive cricket nation, one of the sport’s great stories of the 2010s, has been thwarted by the return of the Taliban to power in August 2021.
Australia had been due to host Afghanistan for the teams’ inaugural Test in late 2021, a match already postponed by a year because of the pandemic, however, the clash was postponed indefinitely over concerns about the future of women’s sport in the country.
Afghanistan has continued to appear at ICC events since the Taliban takeover, as well as in bilateral series against some other nations, playing a three-match ODI series in Sri Lanka in November.
The Afghan side played against Australia at Adelaide Oval in the pool stage of the recent T20 World Cup, coming within a whisker of a major boilover.
However having already banned teenage girls from school, the Taliban in December made the decision to forbid women from attending university in Afghanistan, a move that sparked global outcry and brought further into the spotlight the question of whether it is appropriate to engage in sporting contests against a team representing a nation run by such an oppressive regime.
It’s understood CA is poised to make a call on the scheduled series in the coming weeks, and that the governing body has run the decision by Dr Simon Longstaff, who was in September announced as CA’s inaugural ethics commissioner.
Dr Longstaff penned the damning cultural review into CA in the aftermath of the Cape Town ball tampering incident, from which the establishment of such a post was recommended.
“The creation of the role of CA ethics commissioner, and Dr Longstaff’s appointment, are significant steps for Australian cricket,” CA chairman Dr Lachlan Henderson said at the time of Longstaff’s appointment.
“Not only have we embraced the key recommendations of The Ethics Centre review, this initiative will help to ensure the best process to review ethical issues in cricket that might arise in the future.
“The CA board and our state and territory colleagues are committed to improving governance structures in cricket and the ethics commissioner will provide a vital reference point for issues that impact CA and the game more broadly.
“Having led the 2018 review, Dr Longstaff has a detailed understanding of the challenges the game has faced and the progress that has been made in recent times. We look forward to working with him for the betterment of cricket.”
Daniel Cherny is a Melbourne sportswriter, focusing on AFL and cricket. Having started his career at Back Page Lead, Daniel spent eight years at The Age, during which time he covered Australian Test cricket tours of Bangladesh and the UAE, as well as the 2016 Rio Olympics. He has been recognised for both his AFL and cricket writing, including winning the Clinton Grybas Rising Star Award at the 2019 Australian Football Media Association Awards. He is also a compulsive Simpsons quoter.
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