Cricket Ireland’s decision to host Afghanistan for a five-match ODI series this August has sparked a genuine ethical debate — and in an unusual move, the board has told its own players they can choose not to take part if they are not comfortable with it.

The Series and the Problem With It

Ireland will host Afghanistan across two venues — Bready in Northern Ireland and Stormont in Belfast — from August 5 to 14. The five-match ODI series was approved after a dedicated 90-minute board meeting held solely to discuss this one question.

The issue is straightforward and serious. Since the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan in 2021, women have been banned from participating in sport of any kind. The Afghan women’s cricket team — most of whom had been given contracts and were building careers — had to flee the country. Most of them are now in exile in Australia.

Australia and England have already either cancelled or refused to schedule bilateral series against Afghanistan’s men’s team in protest. Ireland are now going a different route — playing the series but giving their own players the right to opt out.

“I Think You Have To” — Graeme West

Cricket Ireland’s director of high performance, Graeme West, was clear that the opt-out option was not optional in principle — he felt it was the only right thing to offer the players.

“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.”

Cricket Ireland CEO: “Not a Financial or Legal Decision”

CEO Sarah Keane — who made history as the first permanent female CEO of an ICC full member nation — was careful to be transparent about the nature of the decision and the discomfort within the board.

“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.”

“I’m not going to fob you off by saying that there’s financial reasons and there’s legal reasons. There aren’t. This has been a decision by Cricket Ireland in what it believes is the best interest of the organisation as a whole.”

The board’s vote was not unanimous. Forty percent of Cricket Ireland’s board members are women. Keane said one of the main reasons to go ahead was to keep the plight of the displaced Afghan women’s team firmly on the international agenda.

“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. It’s incumbent on us to make sure we look to what we can do and it stays an issue.”

Cricket Ireland has also invited the exiled Afghan women’s team to play fixtures in Ireland, though it is not expected to happen this year due to scheduling constraints.

The Bigger Picture: ICC Under Pressure

Cricket Ireland’s dilemma reflects a wider failure at the ICC level. The global body mandates that Test-playing nations must support women’s cricket — but Afghanistan has had no women’s programme since 2021, and the ICC has not taken action.

Human Rights Watch wrote to ICC chairman Jay Shah in early 2025 urging the suspension of Afghanistan’s membership, pointing out that the Taliban’s ban on women’s sport directly violates the ICC’s own anti-discrimination policy and the Olympic Charter. The ICC resisted, arguing that punishing male cricketers for their government’s policies would be unjust.

The question Cricket Ireland is wrestling with — whether playing sends the wrong message or a louder one — is one the entire cricket world has been unable to answer as a collective.