• Anti-apartheid campaigner plea to governing body
• Women’s cricket team disbanded under Taliban rule

The veteran anti-apartheid campaigner Peter Hain has called on Cricket South Africa to challenge the ban on women’s and girl’s cricket in Afghanistan. In a letter seen by the Guardian, Lord Hain urges the Cricket South Africa’s chief executive, Pholetsi Moseki, to take up the issue with the International Cricket Council before South Africa’s Champions Trophy match against Afghanistan in Karachi on 21 February.

In a particularly striking passage, Hain draws a direct parallel of apartheid with the Taliban’s oppression of women’s rights in Afghanistan. “Having struggled long and hard for black and brown cricketers to represent their country like whites did exclusively for nearly a century, I hope that post-apartheid South African cricket will press for similar rights for all women in world cricket,” Hain tells Moseki. “Will South African cricket please raise the plight of Afghan women cricketers in the ICC and express firm solidarity with Afghan women and girls who wish to play?”