‘We want to play like other teams’: Afghan women’s cricket dreams remain undimmed

Benafsha Hashimi fled the Taliban to Australia in 2021 and is determined to fight for the ICC to follow Fifa’s lead and recognise Afghanistan’s exiled players as the national side

Benafsha Hashimi’s calling is cricket. She was contracted by the Afghanistan Cricket Board when a women’s national side was in development, just before the return of the Taliban in 2021. She subsequently fled as an 18-year-old to Australia where most of her teammates also went, forming a team in exile. Hashimi was part of the Afghan Women XI that played their first game last year in Melbourne. While the rights of women and girls in Afghanistan continue to disappear, Hashimi and her teammates have defied the regime from abroad.

The exiled cricketers were joyous last month, celebrating the transformative news for another set of Afghan athletes. At a council meeting in Canada, Fifa approved the return of the Afghanistan women’s football team to international competition. “Finally, one of the girls’ teams did it because both of us, football and cricket, have been fighting since we came to Australia,” says Hashimi.