Pakistan Women’s Cricket Team Hopes to Showcase Talent at T20 World Cup

Tue Feb 07 2023
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Staff Report

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan captain Bismah Maroof said that the T20 World Cup was a “big opportunity to show our talent” and boost recognition of women’s cricket in Pakistan.

The 31-year-old all-rounder could spearhead the Pakistan women’s team that has never been beyond a first round in seven previous appearances at the international cricket tournament.

Speaking in South Africa where the women’s World Cup gets under way on Friday, Maroof said that “there were times when no one and very few people would know that the women’s cricket team exists.

“With more cricket matches and live coverage,we have earned recognition and respect.”

Pakistan women’s cricket team 

Pakistan women’s team will need to vastly improve on past women’s World Cup performances if they are to make an impact at the ten-team tournament.

They have won seven of their 28 women’s World Cup matches to date, although two against India, in 2012 and 2016.

Maroof and her teammates could be chasing the third victory over their arch-rivals when the two sides clash in the South African city of Cape Town on February 12 tokick off their cricket campaigns.

After taking up cricket as a 16-year-old, Maroof saw first-hand how women’s cricket in Pakistan developed over more than a decade.

But she knows that plenty of work remains.

She said that “I hope it will keep getting better and we will be getting as the facilities and recognition as the other famous teams do,”

“That is the key to improvement.”

Pakistan women’s team is ranked seventh in the world, meaning they could have to over-perform if they are to make it past the first round at the women’s World Cup for the first time.

At the previous year’s Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, Pakistan women finished bottom of their group, behind T20 world champions Australia, Barbados, and India losing all three games.

They could be missing star pace bowler Diana Baig for the women’s World Cup after she fractured a finger in the comprehensive 101-run one-day defeat to Australia the previous month.

But in Fatima Sana, they have the bowling all-rounder who won the International Cricket Council’s emerging women’s cricketer award the previous year.

A title may well be beyond them, but Maroof said the women’s World Cup is “another big opportunity for Pakistani team to showcase our talent.

“So, I just want my Pakistani team to play positive cricket and give their best.”

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