No cuts to Afghanistan Cricket Board funding planned by ICC

The Afghanistan Cricket Board will not spot immoderate of its backing from nan International Cricket Council trim aliases diverted to its exiled women's cricketers.

An initiative to support nan displaced Afghan players was announced by nan ICC pursuing its committee gathering successful Zimbabwe past weekend.

However, arsenic reported by ESPN Cricinfo,, external cricket's world governing assemblage will not trim aliases siphon disconnected money earmarked for nan ACB, moreover though portion of nan criteria for afloat rank of nan ICC is to support women's cricket.

The ICC will support nan Afghan women done a abstracted backing mechanism, while nan ACB will proceed to person a costs believed to beryllium successful nan region of £13m per year.

All of that backing will spell towards men's cricket successful Afghanistan, pinch women's athletics outlawed successful nan state since nan Taliban returned to powerfulness successful 2021.

The ACB is nan only afloat ICC personnel not to section a women's team.

Instead, Afghanistan's women's cricketers will beryllium funded by nan ICC successful conjunction pinch nan England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB), Cricket Australia and nan Board of Control for Cricket successful India (BCCI).

An Afghanistan Women's XI played an accumulation lucifer successful Melbourne successful January and want to beryllium recognised arsenic a exile team.

But nan ICC is understood to person acknowledged that nan imaginable of Afghanistan's women playing charismatic world matches successful nan adjacent early is simply a distant 1 arsenic it would request to beryllium sanctioned by nan ACB.

Afghanistan's women person been promised a robust high-performance programme offering "advanced coaching, world-class accommodation and tailored mentorship" which nan ICC hopes will "help them scope their afloat potential".

Afghanistan's men's squad person retained their Test status, reached nan semi-finals of past year's T20 World Cup and participated successful nan Champions Trophy earlier this year.

BBC Sport has approached nan ACB for comment.