Prominent broadcaster Mel Jones has implored world authorities to offer greater support to the Afghanistan cricketers who relocated to a safe haven in Australia after receiving a major international award for her work in London on Thursday.
The former Australian cricketer, who is also a broadcaster for Fox Cricket, was awarded the Marylebone Cricket Club’s “Spirit of Cricket” honour during the lunch break of the Test between England and India at Lord’s.
An emotional Jones, who worked tirelessly to secure safe passage for the women’s cricketers to Australia after the Taliban seized control of Afghanistan, joked that the “Spirit of Cricket” award was going “straight to the pool room”.
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She indicated the International Cricket Council was about to make a significant announcement regarding the Afghani women’s team later this month when declaring all they wanted to was ensure the cricketers received the same opportunities as their male counterparts.
“Cricket community leaders getting behind this team,” she said.
“The club community back home in Australia, foundations like the MCC have been absolutely brilliant, but we just need our leaders to acknowledge the existence of this group and then set forward a plan for how they can continue to play cricket at club level, at state level, get into leagues and play as an Afghanistan women’s cricket team.
“That is what they want. They want to play underneath their flag in their colours, exactly like the men’s team are being allowed to do.”
Fox Cricket wrote about the endeavours of Jones, who said the award would be shared with friends Emma Staples and Dr Catherine Ordway, prior to the Afghanistan team playing a Cricket Without Borders XI at the Junction Oval in late January.
The views of exiled taekwondo champion Roman Abasy, who now calls Australia home, were also canvassed amid an outcry during the World Cup in March when both Australia and England ignored calls to boycott matches against Afghanistan given the crisis there.
Baron King of Lothbury Mervyn King, who is the President of the MCC, said the Australian deserved to be honoured for her pivotal role in relocating the at-risk women from the clutches of the Taliban.
“I’m absolutely delighted to be able to present the 2025 Spirit of Cricket Award to Mel Jones, not just for her work on commentary, where she is truly outstanding, not merely for her work in supporting women’s cricket, but most importantly for the fact she was fundamentally important in ensuring that the Afghanistan women’s team could relocate to Australia,” he said.
Dr Sarah Fane from the MCC Foundation praised the former cricketer, who played five Tests and 61 one-day matches for Australia, for her humanitarian work in relation to the Afghanistan team.
“Honestly, Mel, what you have done is extraordinary, not just getting those women out, but what you have done is give the Afghan women a voice for the future. They have very little hope within Afghanistan, but these women will bring hope for a long time to come,” she said.
The Fox Sports favourite said that the award “meant the world” to her and that “I don’t think I’ve cried for the entire time I’ve been involved in it all but I just got a little bit teary then”.
She relayed the dramatic fortnight she spent in quarantine in Sydney in 2021 to rescue the women after the Afghanistan Government was overthrown as a “fanciful” endeavour that became a miracle.
“I was coming back from a Sky Sports stint and it was quarantine time, it was Covid time, so I was in quarantine in Sydney wondering how I was going to fill my two weeks and it very quickly turned around,” she said.
“We heard the Afghanistan Women’s Football Team was brought out by a group of women in Australia, to Australia, before the airport had closed. And someone reached out and said, ‘Do you know the Afghan women’s cricket team?’. I said I had no concept about them or any contact, but one thing led to another and the Australian Government said we will give you humanitarian visas, but you are probably only going to get one or two out.
“And then through the work of these two amazing friends, Emma and Catherine, we got 135 out including the 19 contracted players and some females who worked for the Afghanistan team in terms of support staff, media managers and the like. It went from something that was quite fanciful at one stage to where we are today.”