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 side next month.Friba Rezayee, who competed in judo at the 2004 Athens Games,

The ECB is against forfeiting the game – if England do not play, Afghanistan get full points. Given how small the cricketing world is, the ICC can ill afford to hurt the game in Afghanistan. And then there is the all-important question of what India thinks.

England's men's players have the "power" to make their own stand and refuse to play Afghanistan in the Champions Trophy, says Labour MP Tonia Antoniazzi.

On Wednesday, after nearly 160 UK politicians wrote to the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) urging them to boycott the ICC Champions Trophy group fixture against Afghanistan to be played in Lahore.

Richard Gould, the ECB's chief executive, has rejected calls from a group of British politicians for England to boycott their upcoming Champions Trophy clash with Afghanistan in February, saying that the Taliban regime's clampdown on women's rights is a matter that requires a "co-ordinated,

Seven MPs and peers from Northern Ireland back boycott due to the Taliban's oppression of women.

A group of British lawmakers urged England to boycott their Champions Trophy match against Afghanistan next month, saying the country's cricket board (ECB) needed to take a stand against the Taliban's crackdown on women.

The UK government says the International Cricket Council should "deliver on their own rules" relating to women's participation as the England men's team resist calls to boycott their upcoming match against Afghanistan.