🏏ICC Champions Trophy 2025: Afghanistan vs England, Match 8, Group B at Lahore on 26/02/2025 at 2:30PM IST🏏
England, Afghanistan put politics aside with tournament on the line
Defeat for either side will spell the end of their involvement in the Champions Trophy
For several febrile weeks at the turn of the year, it was impossible to ignore the political mission-creep of England versus Afghanistan in the Champions Trophy. And yet, it's not impossible that a cricket match will be allowed to take centre stage, after all, in Lahore on Wednesday. A potentially fascinating one, too.
To deal with the frivolous keep-politics-out-of-sport top line first, this is now a must-win clash for the two winless sides in Group B. Australia's washout against South Africa in Rawalpindi has changed little in that regard, except that it guarantees that, if either team loses in Lahore, they will now be sunk without a trace, rather than relying on snookers and net run-rates when they play the table-toppers later this week.
And, before we get bogged down in the baggage that this contest has acquired, there's plenty of recent on-field intrigue to drill down into too. Afghanistan's historic victory in Delhi at the 2023 World Cup has seen to that. It wasn't the result that ended the reign of the 2019 champions - the tournament's drawn-out itinerary meant no swift end to their humiliation - but it did unquestionably show them up as plodding, timid and past their collective sell-by date.
Eighteen months on, similar concerns endure for England, even as they embark on their white-ball Bazball reboot. On the one hand, their five-wicket loss to Australia was a game of fine margins, none more galling than Jofra Archer's glaring miss in the deep at a pivotal juncture of the chase. On the other hand, they put an apparently hefty 351 on the board yet still got steamrolled with almost three overs to spare. Not even Ben Duckett's tournament-record 165 could suffice for a side whose reticence runs deep, no matter what positive messaging may have been carried across from Brendon McCullum's Test dressing-room.
On balance, therefore, would you rather be in England's shoes - confused as to why your best is still not enough and, in the case of their captain Jos Buttler, vaguely cognisant of the implications of another early tournament exit - or Afghanistan's - fresh from a shoddy display against South Africa that was so far from the new standards that they set themselves that the only way, surely, is up?
Afghanistan's 107-run loss in Karachi was studded with shoddy fielding, including a glaring missed run-out, and capped by a batting effort that was sunk inside the first 15 overs. Rahmat Shah showed the requisite mettle with a 92-ball 90, but Rashid Khan's breezy 18 from 13 balls at No. 9 was their second-best score. After their march to the T20 World Cup semi-finals, not to mention four wins at the 2023 World Cup which secured them their Champions Trophy berth, this squad expects better of themselves these days.
Cue England, then, the perfect opponents for teams in need of a little extra incentive to raise their games.
In truth, the protests about this fixture have dissipated in recent weeks, but that's not to say there won't be more discussion as the contest gets underway, or that the underlying issues are no longer worthy of airtime. On the contrary, when the Labour MP Tonia Antoniazzi wrote to the ECB protesting the "sex apartheid" of Afghanistan's Taliban regime, on whose watch women's sport has effectively been banned since 2021, she was merely articulating the same unease that many individual boards were already feeling - including both England and Australia, who had previously pledged to suspend bilateral ties while the Taliban remain in power.
That letter had been signed by a cross-party group of 160 British MPs, but the UK prime minister Keir Starmer echoed the ECB's line, that this is a matter for the ICC as a collective body, not for individual boards. And that, broadly speaking, has been the final word on the matter for now. Certainly it's a far cry from the situation that Nasser Hussain's World Cup squad found themselves in back in 2003, when - amid similar political posturing - it was left to the players themselves to debate, and ultimately carry out, a unilateral boycott of Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe.
Besides, as Buttler reiterated on the eve of the game, there is still a place for sport as "a source of hope and enjoyment" in tough times … much as was the case on the eve of the 2023 clash, in fact, when Afghanistan's own aim had been to bring a bit of joy back to their country after a devastating earthquake in Herat had killed several thousand people. The issues may be different, but the underlying truth remains the same. When there are forces beyond your control, whatever they may be, all you can do is produce your best and hope it contributes to the greater good.
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