November 2020. Afghanistan for the 1st time in history announces the Women’s National Cricket Team - a significant social progress for a war-torn country under years of radical and oppressive Islamic Rule.

August 2021. Taliban takes over Afghanistan and bans women from playing cricket - thereby reversing years of progress made.

World media made all the right noises about it. ICC paid lip service to the unfolding crisis. India, one of the biggest countries for women's cricket, wanted to fight it. So GE-Sports gave them an easy way out - by making the community of cricket lovers, fans and gamers, play the world’s first e-protest game.

The objective was to make anyone join the PROTEST Match in real time, as a sign of support towards the Afghani Women’s Cricket team. That way GE-Sports gave the banned Women Cricketers, a chance to play - albeit virtually. As a sign of protest.

Global Esports presents the Protest Match - the world’s first e-protest game.

On 3rd April, when ICC Women’s World Cup Finals were taking place for real, we gave the Afghani Women Cricketers a chance to play - albeit virtually.

We replicated every banned player to the last detail and made them play the finals that could have happened by inviting gamers, cricket lovers, fans and in fact anybody to play with or against the virtual team. Towards that, we recreated the same match – virtually, with the same (banned) team, using one of the biggest gaming platforms – STEAM, on the popular game CRICKET19.

The finals that could have happened, was live-streamed at the same time when the real finals was being broadcasted live., taking the cricket fraternity by surprise. That way GE-Sports gave the banned Women Cricketers, a chance to play - albeit virtually. As a sign of protest.

The campaign was targeted to cricket fans, gamers, sporting community and world media in general to support the cause of 25 unfortunate Afghani Women cricketers, who despite having national contracts to play for their country, were banned to play for real, thanks to Taliban rule.

When the ban was announced, world media made all the right noises about it. ICC paid lip service to the unfolding crisis. India, one of the biggest countries for women's cricket, wanted to fight it.

No better day could be chosen to pull of the activation than April 3rd, 2022 - when ICC was organising the Women's Cricket World Cup Finals for real - a pinnacle sporting event, every woman cricketer dreams to play in. On the day, as the Finals were taking place for real, GE-Sports gave the banned Afghani Women Cricketers, a chance to play - albeit virtually. As a sign of protest.

Global Esports presents the Protest Match - the world’s first e-protest game.

No better day could be chosen to pull of the activation than April 3rd, 2022 - when ICC was organising the Women's Cricket World Cup Finals for real (England V/S Australia) - a pinnacle sporting event, every woman cricketer dreams to play in.

So on 3rd April, with the Finals taking place for real, GE-Sports gave the banned Afghani Women Cricketers a chance to play - albeit virtually. As a sign of protest. Towards that, we recreated the same match – virtually, with the same (banned) team, using one of the biggest gaming platforms – STEAM, on the popular game Cricket19.

We replicated every banned player to the last detail and made them play the finals that could have happened by inviting gamers, cricket lovers, fans and in fact anybody to play with or against this virtual team.

Anyone could join the protest match in real time, as a sign of support towards the Afghani Women’s Cricket team.

When the word spread; everyone joined in support. They booked their slots through the microsite and live-streamed their games, making it to the primetime news.

The 19-hour gameplay was viewed by 12,90,200 people (that's almost 10 times the seating capacity of the world's real largest cricket stadium), reached 74,55,213 users and garnered earned media worth INR 92,39,700.

And while GE-Sports wasn’t able to get the ban lifted, they still managed to get the team a chance to play for real – with Cricket Hong Kong reaching out to some of the banned players (who were in hiding) and inviting them to play in their leagues.