Zoofishan Ayyaz already knows who’ll be on the women’s national cricket team in the coming years. She, for one, hopes to make it. The dream could very well be a reality given that she captained the Strikers to a four-wicket win against the Conquerors in the National Women’s Under-19 T20 Tournament final, and a performance that saw her take the player-of-the-match award. But she knows, with the firmest of convictions, that the cohort of teenage girls she plays with and against will be the future of women’s cricket in Pakistan
“I’m telling you, in the coming times, cricket is about to change so much. We have incredible talent coming up,” Zoofi, as she is known to her teammates, told Dawn.com.
“You’re going to see players that make you say ‘wow, Pakistan has this kind of talent’?”
Over at the R. Premadasa Stadium in Colombo, Pakistan recorded their third straight loss in the ICC Women’s World Cup match as they struggled against defending champions Australia. But the 18-year-old from Wah Cantt exuded confidence as she analysed her team’s performance throughout the tournament and was already preparing for a win against Bangladesh in the upcoming series. “It was a batter’s pitch, but the bowlers gave it their best effort too.”
Now in her fourth year playing domestic cricket, Zoofi has seen “zameen asmaan ka farq” from when she first began. “There’s so much competition now that I keep reminding myself to pull up my socks,” she laughed as she twiddled the gold medal hanging around her neck.
“But it’s great that there’s so much competition now, and it’s hopefully these players that will basically make it to the main team.”
It was evident in the mix of disbelief and quiet confidence the girls exuded that they were running head-on to the goals that once stood as distant dreams.
Aqsa Habib almost refused to collect her Player of the Tournament trophy after being glued in place by the shock of her accolade.
“I didn’t even believe it when they called my name out, because they didn’t mention it before, they just gave me a surprise!” the 17-year-old Strikers player from Lahore said. She was player-of-the-match in Monday’s semi-final against the Challengers.
“Heading into this tournament, my main goal was to just give it my best, and I’ve done that in every match,” Aqsa said. “From where to where God has taken me, even I can’t believe it.”
She admitted that playing concurrently to Pakistan’s match against Australia was inspiring but came with an immense amount of legwork.
“Obviously it’s great to think about this kind of stuff, but there’s a lot of hard work that goes into it, which is what we need to do to get to that level. The more we work hard, the closer we are to getting there.”
For now, her support system, that is her team-mates and parents and their prayers, is who she credits for today’s win.
“This team has given incredible support. We had this sort of bond to cover for each other, and I think it’s this team unity that made us win.”
“Manifestation, I’m telling you,” one of her team-mates chimed in. “Before the semi-finals we wrote it down that we would win, and now we’ve won!”
There was a sense of sportsmanship — and handshakes —that went well beyond the players’ years. Zoofi made it a point to acknowledge the fight the Conquerors put up as she gave a winning speech as captain and referred to them as the runners-up team instead of the losing team.
Maheen Irfan of the Conquerors, a right-arm leg spinner, said: “We wanted to win, but they played better today, so it was theirs to win.”
She knew where they were lacking — “we had dot balls and a lot of misfielding, which we shouldn’t have done in the final” — but like Zoofi and Aqsa, also had her eyes on swapping her red Conquerors shirt for the national green team kit one day.
“The dream is to be able to represent Pakistan at an international level. It feels good to have made it till here, hopefully we’ll continue onwards.”
Header image: Strikers pose with the championship trophy of the National Women’s U19 T20 Tournament at National Stadium, Karachi. — Photo by author
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