Escape to freedom: How Afghanistan’s women cricketers found a new home in Australia

They could have been killed in Afghanistan just for being women who played cricket. Instead, a group of Aussies helped them flee and they now hope to play in a women’s refugee team at the Olympic Games.

They fled Afghanistan fearing for their lives. Young female cricketers, forced to leave with their families and establish new roots in Australia simply because of a love for sport.

Three years on, they are still fighting for recognition and the chance to play as an international team in exile – perhaps even entry to the Olympic Games as a refugee side.

The group had their first match together as an unofficial Afghanistan Women’s team in an exhibition game in Melbourne in January.

It has fuelled their desire for more.

Together with the Australian women who assisted in their great escape after a Taliban takeover of the war-torn nation in 2021, they share their hopes for the future.

Afghan cricketers Nahida Sapan, Nilab Stanikzai and Benafsha Hashimi at Manuka Oval in Canberra. Picture: Jonathan Ng

Taliban takeover

Benafsha Hashimi was about eight years old when a bomb went off near her school in Kabul. The sound of gunfire or explosives was not unusual in the capital.

“They allowed everybody to leave school and go to their house because there was danger,” Benafsha, now 22, recalls. “There was a road and in that road was my house … I saw lots of stuff … blood, a head, different pieces of bodies. I grew up with that. We got used to it even as child.”

Fast forward a decade and Benafsha was overjoyed when women’s contracts were offered for the first time by the Afghanistan Cricket Board in January 2021. She was one of 25 players to sign. The deals were modest but a tour to Oman was also on the cards.

Life was looking up.

Australian Governer-General Sam Mostyn (right) and Diana Barakzai, founder of the women's cricket program in Afghanistan, pose with players during a match between Afghanistan Women's XI and Cricket Without Borders XI in January. Picture: AFP

Seven months later the Taliban seized control of Kabul and took back Afghanistan after being ousted by the US in 2001. The brutal regime banned females from playing sports or even being educated beyond primary school.

Shabnam Ahsan was just 13 when she signed an ACB contract. Of the Taliban’s return she says: “My whole world was collapsing. If the Taliban found out about (me) I’d be in danger. I could lose my life. It was so hard to destroy your cricket stuff.”

Nahida Sapan had scorebooks and details about many female players. She burned them all.

“My brother was also a cricketer and some of the Taliban asked him about the cricket girls,” she says. “He was very scared. He said to me, ‘Talk to no one, hide everything you have.’”

With the Taliban in place and others in the community threatening sports-playing women even before the militants returned to power, Nahida was convinced: “They would definitely kill us.”

Nilab Stanikzai tells how her family received death threats from unknown sources while Benafsha adds: “I have no words to describe that time. In one second we lost everything. I didn’t eat for six or seven days, just crying.”

The fear was profound.

Afghan women have lost many fundamental rights since the Taliban took over in 2021. Picture: Getty Images

The Great Escape

Dr Catherine Ordway, lecturing in Sports Integrity, Ethics and Law at the University of Canberra, was planning to teach a module on human rights in sport when she learnt of the women’s cricket side’s plight.

“The Afghanistan football team had got out,” Dr Ordway says.

“But no one was helping the cricket team.”

She had no doubts their lives were in danger.

Together with Emma Staples, who was working at Cricket Victoria at the time, and former Australian player turned broadcaster Mel Jones, Dr Ordway went to work organising an unlikely rescue mission.

“Everyone we spoke to basically said there was no chance,” Jones says.

But the group managed to track down details for a player, Jones connected with Benafsha, and all the required documentation for the team and their immediate families was collected via WhatsApp. Emergency humanitarian visas were sought and approved.

“The federal government was fantastic in supporting and helping us through all the challenges,” Staples says.

In parallel, a plan took shape to extricate the players and their families – all up more than 100 people – by getting them from Kabul to safety in Pakistan and from there to Australia. Ordway knew some Australian intelligence operatives who worked with unknown figures on the ground in Afghanistan to arrange for family groups to be transported to the border by car.

Afghanistan Women's XI players huddle before a match against Cricket Without Borders XI at the Junction Oval in Melbourne earlier this year. Picture: AFP

The Ghost

“It was a special piece of the puzzle,” Staples says. “I’m not sure any of us will ever know for sure who it was … but we had this ‘ghost’ on the ground who managed a lot of the logistics.”

Jones adds: “His intel was critical. He made sure they had stories in place, only took a small backpack, and knew where to hide passports.”

Three months after the Taliban seized power, Nilab received word she and her family would be driven into Pakistan – passing through more than 20 armed checkpoints during a five hour journey.

“It was very hard to cross the border,” she says.

“Everywhere there was Taliban checkpoints. They were asking where are you going and for what reason? A lot of questions.”

Families had been schooled on responses. They were attending a wedding or had a sick family member in need of treatment in Pakistan.

“But there was also a danger that if their phones were taken and there were international numbers in there, they would be shot by the side of the road,” Ordway says.

Most of the Afghan female cricketers who fled to Australia could not speak English and many feared for their lives back home. Picture: Martin KEEP/ AFP

Life in Australia

Of the 25 players, 19 moved to Australia.

Others went to Canada or the UK.

Resettling themselves and their families while dealing with language barriers was a massive strain. Most did not speak any English.

“My sister and sister-in-law and my brothers, they are younger,” Nilab says.

“But for my parents, very hard. They are old people and only little bit understand English.”

Living across Canberra and Melbourne with two players travelling from ACT to represent Sydney University, the cricketers have taken English studies, worked various jobs including factory roles and maintained their love of the sport.

Several intend to seek degrees.

Nahida, who was a top student at Kabul Education University, says: “After I further improve my English I want to study in sport and women’s rights. My big dream is sports psychology … do something for girls and for women.”

Benafsha, who came to Australia with 10 family members, including her mother and seven siblings – her father, a soldier, died when she was “quite young” – plans to study sports management.

Shabnam wants to “get into university, study hospitality and be flight attendant … with my cricket I want to play at a high level”.

Under International Cricket Council regulations, a full member or Test-playing nation must have pathways for female teams and have a sufficient pool of talent “to support strong and consistent national level selection across the senior men’s, under 19 and women’s teams”.

Afghanistan was awarded full member status in 2017 but there is no women’s team in the country, and the players in exile have no official standing. They are not recognised by the Afghanistan Cricket Board and, as a result, will not be approved by the ICC to play against other countries.

“We are pushing the ICC to make this team a refugee team or support us as the Afghanistan women’s team,” Nilab says.

“But the ICC never understand about our situation, our team, our future.”

The ICC told Sydney Weekend it “remains closely engaged” with issues in Afghanistan.

“We are committed to leveraging our influence constructively to support the ACB in fostering … playing opportunities for both men and women in Afghanistan,” a spokesman said.

“The ICC has established an Afghanistan Cricket Task Force, chaired by Deputy Chairman Mr Imran Khwaja, who will lead the ongoing dialogue on this matter.”

Benafsha and other players designed the logo on the team’s shirts for their exhibition match at Junction Oval – a tulip, the national flower of Afghanistan, wrapped around a cricket ball with wattle on the other side.

“We can’t use the flags so we use flowers to represent the countries,” she says.

“What Australia has done for me I can never forget, they have given a new life to me. The two flowers to me are beautiful.”

Afghanistan captain Nahida Sapan at the MCG in January alongside the women’s Ashes trophy.

Hopes and dreams

The players are adamant they do not want the January match to be a debut and swansong in one.

“We have to go further,” Benafsha says.

“In that match I felt I am over the moon … can’t go back from that moment.

“If it’s a crime that we are born as women, I am happy with that. Women have always been ignored in Afghanistan. I love to be a woman.”

Nahida, who captained the team in Melbourne, adds: “I hope the ICC recognises our team because there is no chance for the girls in Afghanistan to play cricket so we are a really big hope for them.

“For us to continue this way, a lot of Afghan girls will have a dream. This is a big message for them. We stand for their rights, stand for their lives, stand for their futures.”

Nahida says if the International Olympic Committee also gave them an opportunity to play at the Games as a refugee team it would be “a powerful statement to the world about the resilience and strength of Afghan woman”.

Shabnam, whose ambition is to play in the women’s Big Bash League, wants ICC support “because this is our rights, we don’t want anything more … and it’s not just for us it’s for next generation of Afghanistan girls”.

Nilab adds: “My hope is that other countries come together to put pressure on the Taliban to restart school and university for the women and hope women get to make their future.

“I’m a lucky person 100 per cent to get the chance to come to Australia and my dream is coming true – that anything I want to do I can do.”

Cricket Australia said it is committed to growing the game for women and men in Afghanistan, but at the same time refuses to allow the Australian men’s team to play Afghanistan in bilateral series. Picture: Martin KEEP / AFP

Cricket Australia’s position

Cricket Australia has refused to play bilateral series against Afghanistan since 2021, but has competed against them in tournaments – most memorably during the men’s one-day World Cup in 2023 when Glenn Maxwell made an unbeaten double century to put his side into the semi-finals.

ICC chair at the time, Greg Barclay, criticised Australia for supposed double standards, telling a British newspaper: “If you really want to make a statement, don’t play them in a World Cup. Sure, it might cost you a semi-final place, but principles are principles.”

The stunning outburst from an ICC boss who has since moved on, surprised Cricket Australia chairman Mike Baird.

“Obviously he’s entitled to his view, and he’s going on to new things and … we wish him well on that,” Baird said in December 2023.

“But we’re very proud of the position we’ve taken.”

Approached by Sydney Weekend this week, a spokesman for CA said the Australian governing body “is committed to supporting and growing the game for women and men in Afghanistan and around the world, and we have taken a leading role in this”.

The spokesman added: “The recent match in Melbourne featuring an Afghanistan Women’s XI was just one example of the practical support the Australian Cricket community has provided the Afghanistan women now resident in Australia in their resettlement.

“Our decision to postpone bilateral games against the Afghanistan men’s team was the result of a significant deterioration in human rights for women in that country including bans on playing sport and attending schools and universities.

“The situation in Afghanistan remains complex and CA is continuing to work with the Australian Government and the Afghanistan Cricket Board.”

In the background, as they study, work and play, the Afghan women cricketers continue to wait for a breakthrough.

They still dare to dream. â–