“Don’t do anything until I get back!”
Mel Jones was in the middle of a television commentary, but she was also in the middle of masterminding an escape from the Taliban.
The former Australia cricketer was one of the three women who organised and funded ways for the Afghanistan women’s cricket team to flee their country in 2021 in what she said felt at times like “a Jason Bourne movie”.
Among the 19 players who made the terrifying journey to Australia was Firooza Amiri, who shook with fear every time her family were stopped in the car at eight check points they had to pass on the journey out of their home country.
To this day, Amiri cannot fathom how their excuses of attending a “family wedding” and “taking their mother to receive medical care in Pakistan” were believed.
“It was the biggest miracle of my life,” she told the BBC.
Three and a half years later, she and her team stepped on to the field at the Junction Oval in Melbourne for an Afghanistan Women’s XI who were playing their first ever match as another chapter in their remarkable story started.
Among those watching on emotionally from the sidelines was Jones, who set up what was dubbed a “backyard immigration service” to organise emergency humanitarian visas, money and safe passage for the players and their families.
Considering the dangerous journeys they had made, this was to be a day of overwhelming joy for the players who were finally back competing in the sport they love.
But the specially designed badge on their kits – rather than an official crest – was a big reminder that their fight to play remains far from over while the International Cricket Council (ICC) does not recognise them as a national side.
In a new documentary, ‘Cricket’s Forgotten Team’, the BBC looks into the team’s story by speaking with the players and those who played a crucial role in safely evacuating them.
‘I didn’t know if we were going to live or die’
Amiri had been drinking tea at home with her grandmother in August 2021 when she heard that the Taliban had returned.
“In that moment I was shocked and I felt that I would lose everything,” she said with tears in her eyes, adding that she knew immediately the team would need to leave the country.
“My parents lived through the first time that Taliban were in Afghanistan and they knew what would happen to the girls.
“I didn’t know if I was going to survive. I didn’t know if there was going to be a chance for me and my family to get out of Afghanistan, I didn’t know if we were going to live or die.
“I burned everything, all my certificates, all my medals. There’s nothing left.”
Under Taliban laws, women are banned from universities, sport and parks. It is also forbidden for their voices to be heard outside of their homes.
Amiri’s team-mate Nahida Sapan recalled how the Taliban came to her home searching for her.
“My brother went outside and one of the Talib asked him, ‘Do you know about some cricket girl? We think she lives here.’ My brother was very scared. I had a scorebook for all of my team-mates so I went home and ripped all of the paper up and put it in the trash.”
Sapan, whose brother worked for the previous government, said her family then started receiving calls and messages from the Taliban.
“They were direct threats. They were saying: ‘We will find you and if we find you, we will not let you live. If we find one of you we will find all of you.’
“I was so worried about all of the team girls. We all needed a safe place.”
That safe place was to come from an unlikely source on the other side of the world.
Evacuation ‘felt like a Jason Bourne movie’
Thousands of miles away, Mel Jones was sitting in quarantine in an Australian hotel during the Covid-19 pandemic when she received a message from an Indian journalist asking whether she had heard about the Afghan cricket team’s situation.
The players had looked to the Afghanistan Cricket Board (ACB) for assistance after the Taliban took over but received none.
On their own, they were terrified under the rule of the hardline Islamist group.
The journalist put Jones in touch with one of the players and she asked if there was anything she could do to help. The player replied to say that all her team-mates and the backroom staff needed to get out of Afghanistan.
Jones, who won two World Cups with Australia, then went through her contact book and brought volunteers on board, including her friend Emma Staples, who used to work for Cricket Victoria, and Dr Catherine Ordway, who had helped to evacuate Afghan women footballers.
Creating a tight network of people who could help, including on the ground in Afghanistan, they organised visas and transport to eventually get 120 people out of the country, mainly into Pakistan and then on military flights to Dubai. From there they flew to Melbourne or Canberra on commercial flights supported by the Australian government.
“I don’t think I understood the enormity of what we were doing at the time,” Staples said. “We were told that we may not be able to save everyone.
“For me, it was co-ordinating what we joke about now as being a backyard immigration service. It was filing out visa documents, passport documents and trying to transfer money to Afghanistan for the girls to purchase passports.
“It was six weeks of gathering information from the family members, trying to get identification, but we just had this extraordinary spreadsheet that detailed everybody.”
She said communication with the players was “really challenging” but “nothing Google Translate couldn’t fix”.
“We giggle now about the language barrier, I got called different names such as ‘delicious’ and some other odd things,” Staples recalled with a smile.
“It all happened so quickly for them that I don’t think they had time to think about what they’ve had to leave behind. I have no doubt that some of them are going through survivor’s guilt.”
Jones, 52, who now works as a cricket broadcaster, said there were moments when it was not clear that the mission would succeed.
“We had to fight the system when everyone kept saying it was impossible. Things were happening minute to minute,” Jones said.
“Without sounding flippant, there were moments that felt like you were in a Jason Bourne movie,” she said, recalling trying to commentate on television while also messaging a player who was struggling to find the right car that would take her to safety.
“She couldn’t find the car and was going up to different people and I had to warn her you can’t do that [for safety reasons], but then I had another commentary stint so I had to say ‘don’t do anything until I get back!’.
“That was the fearful part for me, just making sure they made the right decisions.”
| Emma Staples (Pic): Emma Staples (left), Mel Jones (centre) and Dr Catherine Ordway (right) were instrumental in getting the cricketers out of Afghanistan
In hiding and then ignored
For months after they landed in Australia, the female players kept their whereabouts a secret while they were living in temporary accommodation as they still feared for their safety.
The local cricket clubs they joined also helped protect their identities.
They waited until December 2022 and then wrote to the ICC to tell them they were living in Australia and to ask two big questions: what had happened to their contracts with the ACB and what had happened to the money that goes to the ACB that should be for their development?
They also requested that some of those funds be redirected to the players in Australia.
After a month, the ICC replied to say that contracts were a matter for the ACB and that it was up to the board to decide how to spend the funds it receives from the global governing body.
But with the ACB refusing to engage with their female players, the team were left feeling like those at the top of sport had washed their hands of them.
In June 2024, in light of Afghanistan’s men’s team reaching the semi-finals of the T20 World Cup, the women seized their moment to write a second letter to the ICC.
This time they asked to be allowed to form a refugee international team.
They say they have never received a response to that letter.
“It’s so painful and so disappointing,” said Shabnam Ahsan, who was just 14 when she fled her country. “I don’t understand why they [the ICC] are not doing anything to help us. We have worked so hard and we deserve help just like every other team.”
The ICC told BBC Sport in a statement it “remains engaged with the situation in Afghanistan, with the wellbeing and opportunities of players as our top priority”.
Its chair Jay Shah added: “We are committed to supporting cricket development through the Afghanistan Cricket Board while recognising the challenges facing Afghan women’s cricket, including the concerns of players living in exile.
“The ICC is also reviewing certain communications concerning Afghanistan women’s cricket and exploring how they can be supported within ICC’s legal and constitutional framework. Our focus is on constructive dialogue and viable solutions that safeguard the best interests of all Afghan cricketers.”
Boycott calls and ‘gender apartheid’
Records show Afghanistan had a women’s cricket team in 2012 which folded shortly afterwards. It was then officially relaunched in 2020 when a talent camp led to 25 players being given contacts.
Having a women’s team is part of the criteria required for a country to become a full ICC member and it means Afghanistan receives full funding and Test status.
Yet despite no longer having a women’s team, the ACB still enjoys that full membership, a fact that has started to raise eyebrows around the world.
Earlier this year, UK politicians wrote to the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) calling for England’s men to boycott their Champions Trophy match against Afghanistan on 26 February in protest at the treatment of Afghan women.
The ECB refused but called on the ICC to act, with chief executive Richard Gould writing to the global governing body to take action after what he called “gender apartheid”.
He also called for Afghanistan’s funding to be withheld until women’s cricket is reinstated and support given to Afghan women’s players.
Amiri said she and her team-mates are “proud” of the Afghanistan’s men’s side. All they want is to be treated on the same terms.
“The ICC celebrates equality, but I don’t know what equality they’re celebrating,” Amiri said. “Afghanistan doesn’t have a women’s team and they are still giving the men’s team the chance to play and funds.
“I am so angry. The ICC has never done anything for us. We just want to have a team to give hope to the millions of women in Afghanistan.”
ICC chief Shah said: “Although we continue to support the ACB, we acknowledge the absence of a women’s programme and are actively addressing this through the Afghanistan Cricket Task Force, led by deputy chairman Mr Imran Khwaja.”
As a result of this lack of recognition as a national team, the women had to play as an Afghanistan Women’s XI – rather than officially as Afghanistan – when they faced a Cricket Without Borders side in Melbourne last month.
‘We don’t want this to be our first and last game’
Stepping out at the Junction Oval, which a few days earlier had hosted a Women’s Ashes match between Australia and England, the players sported a custom-made kit that featured a badge they had designed themselves.
The logo depicted a red tulip and a golden wattle – the national flowers of Australia and Afghanistan – entwined around a cricket ball.
It was a sign of how much they have embraced their new life down under, where many of the players now study or work.
The players lost the 20-over exhibition match with four balls to go. But the true victory was the game itself taking place.
“It was so good,” bowler Nilab Stanikzai said. “We are so happy to finally play together.
“We hope it pushes the ICC to support us. To the people in the high positions, please help us.”
Nahida Sapan, who captained the side on the day, added: “We don’t want this to be our first and last game. We want to play a lot, we want to achieve our dream.”
And team-mate Shazia Zazai said: “We’re doing this for all Afghan women. To tell them to be proud of themselves and that they are the strongest women in the world. Please don’t give up.”
It was a day full of emotion and sheer joy but an important question remains: what’s next for the team?
They have no official funding, although an online fund called Pitch Our Future was launched the day after their match and aims to raise £750,000 to help secure the team’s future.
The Marylebone Cricket Club Foundation UK has also pledged that Afghanistan’s women players will be the first beneficiaries of their new Global Refugee Cricket Fund.
The players still have big dreams to one day play on the international stage, but that depends on whether the ICC engages with them.
However, one thing is certain: at a time when women in Afghanistan feel they have no voice, this team will not be silenced.–BBC
