Roya Samim is an Afghan women's cricketer, who currently plays for Canadian club cricket team

Fredericton Fredericton (; ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of New Brunswick. The city is situated in the west-central portion of the province along the Saint John River, which flows west to east as it bisects the city. The river is the do ...

. She was expected to play for the Afghanistan women's national cricket team before the team was dissolved following the

2021 Taliban offensive A military offensive by the Taliban insurgent group and other allied militants led to the fall of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan based in Kabul and marked the end of the nearly 20-year-old War in Afghanistan, that had begun following the ...

Career

Samim is an opening batter. In 2019, she started campaigning for an Afghan professional women's team. In December 2020, the Afghanistan women's national cricket team was recreated by the

Afghanistan Cricket Board The Afghanistan Cricket Board (ACB; ps, د افغانستان کرکټ بورډ, fa, کرکت بورد افغانستان; formerly Afghanistan Cricket Federation) is the official governing body of cricket in the Afghanistan. It is Afghanista ...

(ACB), and Samim was one of 25 Afghan women given a contract to play. She trained for eight hours a day with the other contracted players in Kabul. The team never played an official match, as their first scheduled match against Oman was cancelled. The team's captain was never announced, but Samim was a candidate for the role. After the

started, Samim travelled to Canada, with her two sisters. They left Afghanistan two days before the Taliban took control of Kabul, and one of Samim's brothers also joined them in Canada. Once in Canada, Samim tried contacting the International Cricket Council (ICC) and ACB about getting her teammates out of Afghanistan, but received no response. She has been supportive of the ICC's decision not to ban the Afghanistan men's team, despite calls to do so. In 2022, Samim was featured in an

esports Esports, short for electronic sports, is a form of competition using video games. Esports often takes the form of organized, multiplayer video game competitions, particularly between professional players, individually or as teams. Although orga ...

match for Afghanistan. The esports series was setup as a protest against the Afghan women's team being unable to compete. Samim started playing for

Cricket Club in June 2022, and also worked with Cricket New Brunswick to form a women's provincial team.

Personal life

Aside from cricket, Samim worked as a mathematics teacher in Afghanistan. As of 2021, she planned to study for a Bachelor of Business Administration degree in Canada, and as of 2022, she worked as a settlement worker, helping other refugees.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Samim, Roya Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Afghan cricketers Afghan expatriates in Canada