When sport is politics by other means, self-interest is key

The eighteenth century Scottish economist Adam Smith may not have been a cricket fan, but something he said does apply to the sport.

In his Wealth of Nations he wrote, “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self-interest.”

Currently, India’s self-interest doesn’t align with those who believe their teams should boycott their match against Afghanistan in the Champions Trophy later this month. This, in response to that country’s ‘gender apartheid’, the ill-treatment of women and refusal to have a women’s cricket team which is one of the International Cricket Council’s requirements.

A recent shift in policy saw India’s top diplomat hold a meeting with Taliban’s acting foreign minister. India have investments worth over three billion dollars in some 500 projects in Afghanistan, and are unlikely to endanger the relationship in pursuit of a moral principle in an area, cricket, that is not of any interest to Afghanistan. And what India thinks today, other International Cricket Council members think tomorrow. Cricket is once again being called to play a role neither politicians nor governing bodies are willing to.

Sport and morality are strange bedfellows. If all art is politics, as many have claimed from George Orwell to Lin Manuel Miranda, sport is often politics by other means. The Champions Trophy has seen its share of politics ever since it was assigned to Pakistan and India made their unhappiness felt, asking for and receiving permission to play their matches in another country.

During a match, moral or ethical decisions are left to the individual (consistently blatant cheating in the age of camera-rich broadcasting is difficult). But when it gets to the big picture – human rights, for example – it is up to the governing bodies. Governments get involved, as during the sporting boycott of South Africa in the apartheid years.

Recently released files in the UK show that when England were preparing to tour Zimbabwe in 2004, former Prime Minister John Major (a cricket fan) urged his successor Tony Blair to stop the “morally repugnant” series from going ahead.

Robert Mugabe (also a cricket fan) then Zimbabwe’s President, headed a repressive regime. “He and his henchmen were alleged to be responsible for the torture, rape and murder of hundreds of thousands of my countrymen,” the Zimbabwean all-rounder Henry Olonga who escaped from his country during the World Cup, wrote in his memoirs.

In the ideal world, the ICC would call for a boycott of Afghanistan for breaking its rules, and the Taliban would, in the interests of a game they don’t understand, change their policies. That is too facile, even fantastical. In any case, the ICC lack the will, and the Taliban don’t care if their men never play cricket again.

There are no solutions where players, male or female, from Afghanistan won’t suffer. While it is right for the cricket world to feel exercised over the treatment of women in that country, an occasional boycott may not be the answer. A columnist in The Guardian has written that the dignity and humanity of Afghan women must be worth more than a game of cricket, and you cannot disagree with that. But sporting boycotts can impact only countries that lay store by sport.

Last week, an Afghanistan Women’s XI played a 20-over exhibition match against Cricket Without Borders in Melbourne to remind us of the talent from that country. More than 20 of Afghanistan’s women players have been in Australia since the Taliban’s return to power in 2021, which signalled the end of women’s sport. They deserve the support of the ICC, but the chairman of that body is an Indian who speaks the language of the Indian government where his father is the Home Minister. Case closed.

Self-interest is the theme of cricket administration in India, and around the world. To expect governing bodies to take a moral stand is naive. To convince the Taliban their self-interest is aligned to the growth of their women’s cricket is an impossible task.

You could ban Afghanistan from the Champions Trophy, but that would only hurt their talented men’s team without doing anything for the women.