Just over two years ago, Firooza Amiri was an 18-year-old batter for the Afghanistan women's cricket team, ready to take on the world if given the chance.
But just like that, her world and that of millions of others in her country changed forever. Forced to flee with her family when the Taliban retook power in Afghanistan on Aug. 15, 2021, Amiri and her family first traveled to Pakistan and then were evacuated to Australia, She still lives in Australia, along with most of her 25 teammates.
Now, looking for their place in international competition, they are pleading with the International Cricket Council and the Afghanistan cricket authorities to give them a place to play, despite the Taliban's ban on women in sport and education.
"Yeah, unfortunately two weeks ago was the two-year anniversary of the Taliban and our BLACK DAY," Amiri said in a message to The Associated Press, accentuating two words in capital letters. Amiri and her family were from the oasis city of Herat, then the third-largest city in Afghanistan with an estimated population of about 500,000. "It was a black day for me and all the girls of Afghanistan, the day our dreams were destroyed and all the efforts of many years of each of us were destroyed," Amiri told the AP. "When Herat fell, we decided to go to Kabul and reach one of the foreign embassies. When we arrived in Kabul, we saw that Afghanistan had fallen completely to the Taliban and all the people were going to the airport to be able to leave the country, we did the same."