Ireland cancels Afghanistan series
Ireland has cancelled a three-format bilateral series against Afghanistan. According to the ICC tour schedule this year, the Irish were supposed to play a Test and three ODIs and a T20I against the Afghans. However, they have now withdrawn from the series.
With this, Ireland is the third team after Australia and England not to play a bilateral series with Afghanistan. However, Cricket Ireland CEO Warren Deutrom claims that this is not a political decision, but has been taken for economic reasons.
Deutrom said, “The series against Afghanistan is not possible for financial reasons. We have to deal with the short-term budget crisis and balance investment according to the board’s strategic goals.”
However, this could be a big blow for Afghanistan. Because although the performance on the field is excellent, the country is under international pressure due to incidents off the field. After the Taliban came to power in August 2021, girls in the country are banned from studying sports as well as studying, even from studying medicine.
Meanwhile, Afghanistan is a full member of the ICC, and one of the conditions for this membership is that it must have a women’s team. Due to these complications, teams like Australia and England have decided not to play bilateral series against the Afghans. The international human rights organization Human Rights Watch has even recently called for Afghanistan to be banned from international cricket.
Even if this series is not held, the men’s cricket team in Ireland will play ODI and T20 series against the West Indies in May and June. England will play a three-match T20 series in Ireland for the first time in September. Cricket Ireland released their international schedule yesterday. These two series are mentioned there.
Since becoming a full member of the ICC in 2017, Ireland has played 10 Tests so far, of which only 2 have been on home soil. Ireland won its first Test against Afghanistan in the United Arab Emirates in 2024, then the Irish won two more Test matches at home last year and recently in Zimbabwe.
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