2 min readMar 24, 2026 08:09 PM IST
Having decided to go ahead with their five-match home ODI series against the Afghanistan men’s cricket team, the Cricket Ireland board has said that it will leave it up to the players to commit to their participation.
Amid calls for a boycott, Ireland had last week announced the five-match series slated to be held in August, despite carrying a ‘moral discomfort’ of playing against a board that has disregarded women’s cricket. Female participation in sports was barred in Afghanistan five years ago when the Taliban reassumed power in the country.
Greame West, director of high performance at Cricket Ireland, said that the board will leave it up to the players to decide on their availability for the series to be played in Bready and Stormont.
“I think you have to. We have had conversations with both the men’s and women’s teams to gauge opinion. There are concerns, as you would anticipate, but when we had similar conversations with the board and considered all the factors, there is an understanding,” West told the BBC.
Cricket Ireland CEO Sarah Keane, the first woman to hold the position across all Full-Member nations under the ICC, said that the board’s decision to go ahead with the series was not a unanimous call.
“I want to acknowledge upfront the moral discomfort that I think we all sit with around this decision and how the regime treats women in particular,” Keane said.
“Forty percent of our board are women – the overall decision was that we would play Afghanistan and take our obligations as a full member very seriously,” she added.
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“But I think the main reason also was that people felt very strongly that if we don’t [play the series] the issue kind of goes away, whereas we need to be talking about the displaced Afghan women’s team.”
“They’ve also been invited to [play in] Ireland but I don’t think it will happen this year due to scheduling.”
The Afghans last toured Ireland for an ODI series in May 2019, shortly before the World Cup that year.
