“I’m not going to take permission from the Taliban to let me play”: The grim effect of the Taliban takeover on Afghanistan’s Women’s National Cricket Team
It is clear that women’s cricket has been on the rise across the world.
Asian nations, in particular such as India, Sri Lanka and Pakistan are significant competitors on the international stage, currently standing at world number 3, 7 and 8 respectively in the T20I rankings.
The unprecedented growth of the sport was also the case for neighboring country Afghanistan. However, as the nation experienced a takeover by the Extremist Islamic Militant group, the Taliban in August 2021, a shadow was cast over Afghan women’s sport.
The Afghan Women’s National Cricket Team was established in 2010 and played their first international match against Tajikistan in July 2012, before disbanding in 2014.
With the aim of developing a competitive national team, the Afghanistan Cricket Board (ACB) granted central contracts to 25 players in November 2020. Despite gaining full international status from the International Cricket Council (ICC) in April 2021, the team were yet to play a competitive match before the Taliban takeover.
Roya Samim was just one of the Cricket players affected and has been living in exile in Canada since 2021. Samim was lucky enough to leave Kabul two days before the Taliban ascension to power. Since then, she has remained committed to speaking out against the militant group, often taking to social media to express the rights that Afghan women do not have under their rule.

Samim spoke to The Sports Gazette about the detrimental effect of Taliban rule on the Afghan National Women’s Cricket Team.
“It’s a negative impact, it’s a huge impact but it’s negative. You can see there’s nothing right now in Afghanistan even though I lost my house, I just try to play cricket in other countries but it’s hard whatever I want to do. It will be better if I play for my own country, they took everything from us, it is really hard.”
Samim went on to detail how more awareness could be brought to how the Taliban has negatively impacted the existence of women’s sport in Afghanistan, “I think it is dependent on the world, i’m not going to take permission from the Taliban to let me play”, she said on choosing to continue to pursue sport.
“Right now many teams play Cricket even though the Taliban is not recognised as a government but still they’re playing and the world wants us to play as well. It depends on the world, i’m just going back to the international countries that are playing Cricket.”
Having spent over three years in exile away from her homeland, Samim has had to contend with starting a new life from scratch while integrating her sport into her day to day routine.
“Actually in Canada I have everything, I have freedom, I can do whatever I want. For a girl that’s all, I can work, I can drive, I can play Cricket.”
Regarding her sporting transition to Canada she added,”I had to start from zero here with Cricket. It’s not easy to achieve, I have to achieve the goals I want.”
The Taliban’s ascension to power in Afghanistan also forced the majority of Samim’s teammates to flee their homeland, with many seeking refuge in Australia. The cricketer shared some of the overarching experiences faced by her fellow players.
“It is completely changing the life of every girl in Afghanistan especially those who play sports and for cricket exactly because they don’t accept us. Most of them left Afghanistan and fled from Afghanistan but most of them stayed back. We have group A and B, group B are still there and they’re stuck, they cannot play Cricket.”
Samim explains that, with the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup in mind, her former teammates have reached out to her in hopes of negotiating with both the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) and the Taliban to participate in the tournament. However, Samim maintains that it will be very hard to make the Taliban listen and talk with the team.
The tournament’s host nation, the UAE, has become somewhat of a neutral zone for games between countries with tense relations, such as India and Pakistan. Samim believes it could therefore be plausible for a neutral Muslim majority country to host the Afghan women’s national team if their pleas to the Taliban fall on deaf ears.
“If the Taliban doesn’t accept us, so what? If the men’s team still can play, why can’t women? If the men’s team has a base in the UAE in Dubai why can’t the women not have that? If the men can have an international ground there why can’t the women? It depends on the ICC and the situation in the world. If Australia stands up for us, if England stands up for us, if it happens this way it will bring more positive results.”
The ICC and the ECB are two more crucial components in allowing the Afghan women’s national team to participate as a side in the future. The ICC requires that members have satisfactory pathways in place for women’s cricket, yet Afghanistan stands out as the only full member without a women’s team. Australia and England, however, have refused to play bilateral matches against the men’s side.
“With the ICC,” Samim explains, “when I was new in Canada I sent them emails, I did not receive any reply.”
Samim’s Australia-based teammates contacted the governing bodies and asked to participate as an immigrant team as an alternative to a national one, to which there was also no clear response.