ISLAMABAD: The International Cricket Council (ICC) has named legendary woman cricketer and former skipper of Pakistan Women’s Cricket team Sana Mir as ambassador for the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup Qualifier.
Sana Mir represented Pakistan in 226 internationals, whereas she played 137 matches as skipper of the national women’s side. Being ICC ambassador she would be keeping a close eye on the 10 participating teams and their players in the two-week-long tournament.
The former skipper is looking forward to an intense battle for the two finalist spots for the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup in Bangladesh later this year, as the action in Abu Dhabi gets underway from 25 April to 7 May.
As a captain and player, Sana participated in a number of qualifying events for Pakistan, particularly the 2008 edition of the ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup Qualifying Series where her 70 runs and nine wickets bagged her the joint Player of the Series award.
While commenting on the development Sana said that her aim was to talk to the various teams and players during the Qualifier and to guide them on how to deal with the pressure of these events. She further stated that Pakistan had a tremendous record in these events. She reminded about the 2008 edition of the 50-over World Cup qualifier event as a player.
Sana Mir as Former Cricketer
As an all-rounder during her 14-year career, Sana scored 2432 international runs and took 240 international wickets through her off-break bowling.
After her retirement, she stayed in touch with the game and feels that the gap between the top-ranked teams and Associate Member teams is beginning to close and that is due to more playing opportunities for the players through the ICC pathway events.
“I am particularly keen to watch the progress of some of the players from Zimbabwe whom I worked with in my mentorship responsibilities during the inaugural ICC Women’s U19 T20 World Cup in South Africa last year”, she said.
“The power game has surely become crucial in women’s cricket as well and players like Sri Lankan captain Chamari Athapaththu have created a big legacy with their swashbuckling style. I am looking forward to watching her unleash some big hits and big scores in the event. It would also be interesting to see how the teams react in such challenging conditions in Abu Dhabi, the pitches in the UAE can help slow bowlers at times and the hot weather would also require to be taken into consideration”, Sana said.
The 10 teams competing in the Qualifier have been placed into two groups of five each, the top two from each group would enter the semi-finals. The semi-final winners would confirm their trip to Bangladesh.
Scotland, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Uganda and the USA placed in Group A, while Ireland, the Netherlands, the UAE, Vanuatu and Zimbabwe have been featured in Group B.
The tournament kicks off at the Tolerance Oval and Zayed Cricket Stadium Abu Dhabi on Thursday, 25 April.
