• 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 before next month’s Champions Trophy.

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. In a particularly striking passage, Hain also draws direct parallels with the struggle of black and brown players under apartheid with the Taliban’s oppression of women’s rights in Afghanistan.