England’s cricket match against Afghanistan should go ahead despite fury at the Taliban‘s treatment of women, the Culture Secretary said today.

Lisa Nandy argued that a boycott of the Champions Trophy one-day game in Pakistan next month would be ‘counterproductive’. 

The minister used a round of interviews this morning to back the tie happening even though more than 160 MPs and peers have urged the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) to take a stand. 

‘I do think it should go ahead,’ Lisa Nandy told BBC Breakfast. ‘I’m instinctively very cautious about boycotts in sports, partly because I think they’re counterproductive.

‘I think they deny sports fans the opportunity that they love, and they can also very much penalise the athletes and the sports people who work very, very hard to reach the top of their game and then they’re denied the opportunities to compete.

‘They are not the people that we want to penalise for the appalling actions of the Taliban against women and girls.’

However, Ms Nandy insisted the UK should not be ‘rolling out the red carpet’ at the event, adding: ‘When China hosted the Winter Olympics, I was very vocal, many of us were very vocal about making sure that we didn’t send dignitaries to that event, that we didn’t give them the PR coup that they were looking for when they were forcibly incarcerating the Uighur in Xinjiang.’

She urged the governing body to consider boycotting the match in protest at the ‘dystopia’ in the country, and use it to register a protest against the ‘abhorrent oppression’.

The ECB has been resisting the idea of unilateral action, with chief executive Richard Gould urging a collective response from the International Cricket Council.

A spokesman for Prime Minister Keir Starmer has said responsibility lies with the ICC, which has the power to suspend Afghanistan following its abolition of female sport.

More than 160 UK politicians have told the England cricket team to boycott an  upcoming match against Afghanistan in protest at the Taliban’s ‘medieval oppression’ of women.

A letter penned by Labour MP Tonia Antoniazzi to the ECB pointed out that one of the Islamist regime’s first acts on retaking power in 2021 was to ban women from taking part in sport.

The Afghanistan men’s team, which is coached by former England batsman Jonathan Trott, is still allowed to play internationally, while the exiled women’s team is not, she added. 

She urged the governing body to consider boycotting the match in protest at the ‘dystopia’ in the country, and use it to register a protest against the ‘abhorrent oppression’. 

Those backing her call come from across the political spectrum, including Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, ex-DUP leader Baroness Arlene Foster, Lord Neil Kinnock and Jeremy Corbyn.

MPs and peers from across across Westminster are backing the campaign by Labour MP Tonia Antoniazzi ahead of the Champions Trophy one-day game in Pakistan next month

In her letter, Ms Antoniazzi wrote: ‘As the world watches this insidious dystopia unfold, women in Afghanistan find themselves erased from the most innocent of daily activities, imprisoned at home, risking torture and public execution if they protest or do not comply.