England skipper Jos Buttler who will be leading his team in the upcoming Champions Trophy has said that boycotting the Afghanistan match is not the way to go forward in setting an example in the world of cricket.
England are set to play Afghanistan on February 26 in Lahore. Ahead of the contest, there are concerns over the high-profile game after reports of the game likely to be abolished.
The match now has come under political pressure after a letter from Labour MP Tonia Antoniazzi to Richard Gould, the ECB chief executive called out against some of the indecent practices prevalent in the country. It is reported that 14 million women in the country are facing problems like "insidious dystopia" and "sex apartheid" under the Taliban rule.
There is pressure on the ECB to pull out from the Afghanistan match after 160 British politicians sent a letter to the ECB urging them to forfeit their match against Afghanistan. In her letter, Antoniazzi urged England's men's team to speak out against the horrific treatment of women and girls in Afghanistan. Reportedly, the Afghanistan women's cricket team has also been abolished by the Taliban rule.
Jos Buttler Denies ECB's Stance On Afghanistan
Meanwhile, Jos Buttler broke his silence on the matter in the first T20I press conference in Kolkata. He is hopeful that the match will go as planned.
"Political situations like this, as a player you're trying to be as informed as you can be,. The experts know a lot more about it, so I've been trying to stay in dialogue with Rob Key [ECB men's managing director] and the guys above to see how they see it. I don't think a boycott is the way to go about it" Buttler said.
He further said that his players are not worried by the political pressure and was confident saying that the external pressures would not be a big problem in the game.
"The players haven't really worried too much about it," he said. "These things, you're trying to educate yourself and read up on these things. There's been some good stuff written about it that I've tapped into and I've spoken to quite a few people to try and gather expert opinion. I'm led by those experts on situations like this, but as a player, you don't want political situations to affect sport. We hope to go to the Champions Trophy and play that game and have a really good tournament."
Meanwhile, this is the first time Afghanistan qualified for the Champions Trophy after a good performance in the ODI World Cup 2023 where they finished sixth on the table and beat teams like England, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Netherlands.
