ONE of Afghanistan’s first female Olympians has called on the England cricket team to boycott their Champions Trophy match against the Asian country’s men’s team next month.

Friba Rezayee, who competed in judo at the 2004 Athens Games, says female Afghan cricketers and athletes in other sports are treated “as if they didn’t exist” by the Taliban regime and called on England to pull out of the match in protest.

The team have come under political pressure to withdraw from the match in Lahore as a moral objection to the Taliban’s ongoing assault on women’s rights in the country, and Rezayee, the founder of Women Leaders of Tomorrow, has now joined the calls.