The Pakistan Cricket Board has announced the two women’s squads for the upcoming Women’s League exhibition matches, which will take place before the HBL PSL 8 matches in Rawalpindi on March 8th, 10th, and 11th. The women’s matches will start at 2pm and will be followed by the men’s matches at 7pm.
Bismah Maroof will captain the Amazons team, which includes Laura Delany of Ireland, Lauren Winfield-Hill, Maia Bouchier, and Tammy Beaumont of England, and Australia’s Tess Flintoff. Nida Dar will lead the Super Women team, which features Sri Lanka’s Chamari Athapaththu, Danni Wyatt of England, Jahanara Alam of Bangladesh, South Africa’s Laura Wolvaardt, and Lea Tahuhu of New Zealand.
Ten leading foreign players from seven countries will be playing in the three matches, which are considered a soft launch of the Pakistan Women’s League, tentatively planned for September. The ten foreign players will be joined by Pakistan’s 20 elite players, four U19 players who recently participated in the ICC U19 Women’s T20 World Cup (Areesha Noor, Eyman Fatima, Shawaal Zulfiqar, and Syeda Aroob Shah), and two emerging cricketers (Fatima Khan and Syeda Masooma Zahra).
The 36 cricketers have been equally divided into two teams, and the playing line-ups will include a maximum of four and a minimum of three foreign players and a minimum of one emerging or U19 player.
Eight of the ten foreign players recently featured in the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup 2023 in South Africa, with Delany and Athapaththu captaining Ireland and Sri Lanka, respectively. Laura Wolvaardt, who was selected in the Team of ICC Women’s T20 World Cup 2023 and is the sixth-ranked batter in the world, is one of the biggest stars in women’s cricket. Similarly, Danni Wyatt is also a recognizable name in women’s cricket, having scored a total of 1,776 ODI and 2,369 T20I runs. She is the second most capped T20I player, with 143 matches, eight games behind India’s Harmanpreet Kaur.
In the ICC rankings for batters, Athapaththu is ranked 11th, followed by Wyatt (16th), Beaumont (44th), and Delany (61st). Tahuhu is the highest-ranked foreign bowler, in eighth position, followed by Jahanara (60th).
Pakistan’s high-ranked players include Bismah Maroof (33rd), Nida Dar (38th), and Aliya Riaz (56th) (all batters), Sadia Iqbal (19th), Nida Dar (21st), Nashra Sandhu (26th), Anam Amin (37th), and Tuba Hassan (39th) (all bowlers).
Australia’s Tess Flintoff and England’s Tammy Beaumont missed last month’s event. Flintoff, who is 19 years old, is on the verge of international cricket, while 31-year-old Beaumont is an established star cricketer, having represented England in seven Tests, 103 ODIs, and 99 T20Is, scoring a total of 5,493 international runs with ten centuries.
Squads:
Amazons – Bismah Maroof (captain), Aliya Riaz, Anam Amin, Areesha Noor, Eyman Fatima, Fatima Khan, Fatima Sana, Ghulam Fatima, Gull Feroza, Kainat Imtiaz, Laura Delany (Ireland), Lauren Winfield-Hill (England), Maia Bouchier (England), Nashra Sundhu, Sadaf Shamas, Tammy Beaumont (England), Tess Flintoff (Australia) and Umm-e-Hani
Super Women – Nida Dar (captain) Aimen Anwar, Chamari Athapaththu (Sri Lanka), Danni Wyatt (England), Iram Javed, Jahanara Alam (Bangladesh), Laura Wolvaardt (South Africa), Lea Tahuhu (New Zealand), Muneeba Ali, Natalia Parvaiz, Omaima Sohail, Sadia Iqbal, Shawaal Zulfiqar, Sidra Amin, Sidra Nawaz, Syeda Aroob Shah, Syeda Masooma Zahra and Tuba Hassan
