Sunday, February 16, 2025

Jos Buttler – Afghanistan boycott at Champions Trophy is ‘not the best way to go’

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Jos Buttler, England’s captain, says he would not consider a boycott of Afghanistan cricket is “the best way to go”, forward of the boys’s groups’ scheduled assembly in subsequent month’s Champions Trophy.

The competition, set for Lahore on February 26, has come below sustained political scrutiny previously few weeks, following a letter from Labour MP Tonia Antoniazzi to Richard Gould, the ECB chief govt, which known as out the “insidious dystopia” and “intercourse apartheid” going through 14 million ladies in Afghanistan below the ruling Taliban regime.

In her letter, which was signed by greater than 160 British politicians, Antoniazzi urged England’s males’s workforce to “communicate out towards the horrific remedy of ladies and women in Afghanistan below the Taliban”, the place feminine participation in sport has successfully been banned since 2021. She added {that a} boycott would “ship a transparent sign that such grotesque abuses won’t be tolerated”.

Gould’s response had been to reject that decision, saying that the matter required a “co-ordinated, ICC-led, response” relatively than unilateral motion from particular person nations. His stance was backed by each the UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, who urged the ICC to “ship on their very own guidelines”, and Lisa Nandy, the game and tradition secretary, who argued that such measures have been “counterproductive”.

Talking in Kolkata forward of the primary T20I towards India, Buttler insisted he and his workforce can be led by the “specialists”, however was optimistic that the match would go forward as deliberate.

“Political conditions like this, as a participant you are attempting to be as knowledgeable as you will be,” Buttler stated. “The specialists know much more about it, so I have been attempting to remain in dialogue with Rob Key [ECB men’s managing director] and the fellows above to see how they see it. I do not assume a boycott is the best way to go about it.”

The scenario echoes the dilemma that England’s cricketers confronted on the 2003 World Cup, when Nasser Hussain’s workforce have been urged to boycott their group-stage match with Zimbabwe, then led by Robert Mugabe – a choice that was in the end left to the gamers, and resulted in a factors forfeiture that scuppered their qualification for the match’s latter phases.

Buttler, nonetheless, was assured that no such particular person strain can be dropped at bear this time.

“The gamers have not actually fearful an excessive amount of about it,” he stated. “This stuff, you are attempting to teach your self and skim up on these items. There’s been some great things written about it that I’ve tapped into and I’ve spoken to fairly a couple of folks to try to collect professional opinion.

“I am led by these specialists on conditions like this, however as a participant, you don’t need political conditions to have an effect on sport. We hope to go to the Champions Trophy and play that sport and have a extremely good match.”


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