Zoofishan Ayyaz now knows who will be part of the national women’s cricket team in the coming years. She, for her part, hopes to achieve it. The dream could well become a reality given she captained the Strikers to a four-wicket victory against the Conquerors in the final of the National Women’s Under-19 T20 Tournament, and a performance that saw her take home the player of the match award. But she knows, with the strongest of convictions, that the group of teenagers 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 a lot. We have some incredible talent coming up,” said Zoofi, as she is known to her teammates. sunrise.com.
“Will you see players who will make you say ‘wow, Pakistan has this kind of talent’?”
At the R. Premadasa Stadium in Colombo, Pakistan registered their third consecutive defeat in the ICC Women’s World Cup match as they battled against defending champions Australia. But the 18-year-old from Wah Cantt showed confidence as she analyzed her team’s performance throughout the tournament and was already preparing for a win against Bangladesh in the upcoming series. “It was a hitter’s pitch, but the pitchers did their best too.”
Now in his fourth year playing domestic cricket, Zoofi has seen “zameen asmaan ka farq” since it started. “There’s so much competition now that I keep reminding myself to pull up my socks,” he laughed as he fiddled with the gold medal hanging around his neck.
“But it’s great that there is so much competition now and I hope these players basically make it to the main team.”
It was evident in the mix of disbelief and quiet confidence exuded by the girls who were running headlong toward goals that were once distant dreams.
Aqsa Habib almost refused to collect her Player of the Tournament trophy after being paralyzed by the shock of her award.
“I didn’t even believe it when they called out my name, because they hadn’t mentioned it before, they just gave me a surprise!” said the 17-year-old Strikers player from Lahore. She was player of the match in Monday’s semifinal against the Challengers.
“Going into this tournament, my main goal was to give my best and I have done that in every match,” Aqsa said. “Where God has taken me from, I can’t even believe it.”
He admitted that playing at the same time as Pakistan’s match against Australia was inspiring, but required an immense amount of groundwork.
“Obviously, it’s cool to think about this kind of stuff, but there’s a lot of hard work involved, which is what we have to do to get to that level. The harder we work, the closer we’ll get to getting there.”
For now, his support system, meaning his teammates, his parents, and his prayers, is who he credits for today’s victory.
“This team has been incredibly supportive. We had this kind of bond to have each other’s backs, and I think it’s this team unity that made us win.”
“Protest, I’m telling you,” one of her teammates intervened. “Before the semi-finals we wrote that we would win, and now we have won!”
There was a sense of sportsmanship (and handshakes) that went far beyond the age of the players. Zoofi made it a point to recognize the fight the Conquerors put up when she gave a winning speech as captain and referred to them as the runner-up team instead of the losing team.
Maheen Irfan of the Conquerors, a right-leg spinner, said: “We wanted to win, but they played better today, so it was theirs to win.”
He knew where they were lacking: “we had points and a lot of field errors, which we shouldn’t have made in the final”, but like Zoofi and Aqsa, he also had his eyes set on one day exchanging his red Conquerors jersey for the green jersey of the national team.
“The dream is to be able to represent Pakistan at the international level. It feels good to have come this far, hopefully we can keep going.”
Header image: Strikers pose with the championship trophy of the National Women’s U19 T20 Tournament at the National Stadium, Karachi. — Photo by the author
