Pakistan captain Bismah Maroof says the Twenty20 World Cup is a “big opportunity to showcase our talent” and boost recognition of women’s cricket in the country.
\nThe 31-year-old all-rounder will spearhead a Pakistan team which has never been beyond the first round in seven previous appearances at the tournament.<\/p>\n
Speaking to AFP by telephone from South Africa where the World Cup gets underway on Friday, Maroof said: “There were times when no one or very few people would know that the Pakistan women’s cricket team exists.<\/p>\n
“With more matches and live coverage we have earned recognition and respect.”<\/p>\n
Pakistan’s women will need to vastly improve on past World Cup performances if they are to make an impact at the 10-team tournament.<\/p>\n
They have won only seven of their 28 World Cup matches to date, although two were against India, in 2012 and 2016.
\nMaroof and her team-mates will be chasing a third victory over their arch-rivals when the two sides clash in Cape Town on February 12 to kick off their campaigns.<\/p>\n
After taking up cricket as a 16-year-old, Lahore-born Maroof has seen first-hand how women’s cricket in Pakistan has developed over more than a decade.<\/p>\n
But she knows also that plenty of work remains.<\/p>\n
“I hope it’ll keep getting better and we’ll be getting as the facilities and recognition as the other top teams do,” she said.<\/p>\n
“That is the key to improvement.”<\/p>\n
Pakistan are ranked seventh in the world, meaning they will have to over-perform if they are to make it past the first round at the World Cup for the first time.<\/p>\n
At last year’s Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, Pakistan finished bottom of their group, behind T20 world champions Australia, India and Barbados, losing all three games.<\/p>\n
They will be missing star pace bowler Diana Baig for the World Cup after she fractured a finger in a comprehensive 101-run one-day defeat to Australia last month.<\/p>\n
But in Fatima Sana, 21, they have a bowling all-rounder who won the International Cricket Council’s emerging women’s cricketer award last year.<\/p>\n
The title may well be beyond them, but Maroof says that the World Cup is “another big opportunity for us to showcase our talent.<\/p>\n
“So I just want my team to play positive cricket and give their best.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Pakistan captain Bismah Maroof says the Twenty20 World Cup is a “big opportunity to showcase our talent” and boost recognition of women’s cricket in the country. The 31-year-old all-rounder will spearhead a Pakistan team which has never been beyond the first round in seven previous appearances at the tournament. Speaking to AFP by telephone from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":113193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-113192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=113192"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113192\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":113194,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113192\/revisions\/113194"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/113193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=113192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=113192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=113192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}