Slow, steady but rising

After winning the memorable Asian Games gold. —Photo by AFP They may have been away from the news after their gold-medal-winning performance at last year's Asian Games, but Pakistan's women's cricket team have been slowly plotting a comeback into the limelight. The on-field success at Guangzhou was followed by another breakthrough moment in women's cricket, when the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) awarded central contracts to the women's team in the following month (December 2010). While the number of contracted players or the remuneration they received was not revealed by the board, the move was welcomed by national captain Sana Mir, who said "the PCB has acknowledged that we can play the game professionally and this will spur us on for more achievements." The team's five-month hiatus from international cricket came to end with a tour of Sri Lanka, prior to which, they underwent a training regimen in Lahore. During the eleven-day training camp, the players worked towards improving their batting and fielding skills after a series of batting failures in earlier tournaments. Mir, then, showed faith in her team's hard work and expected it to pay dividends during the series. Pakistan completed a series sweep on Friday, when they beat Ireland in their final ODI and won the quadrangular one-day international (ODI) series on the basis of superior points. They had earlier won the Twenty20 quadrangular series, which included the same teams as the ODI version, Sri Lanka, Ireland and Netherlands. While the captain's faith was not entirely repaid during the tour, the batting did show major signs of improvement in the three Twenty20 and four ODI matches. Opening batter Javeria Wadood Khan was particularly impressive during the tour as she averaged 29 in the Twenty20 series and raked up 110 runs in four ODIs, with two unbeaten, match-winning knocks of 43* and 67*. The 22-year-old's success was one of the mainstays of Pakistan's success on the tour, as reiterated by Mir. "I am very happy with the way Javeria performed throughout the series, her batting was one of the key factors behind our series victories," Mir told Dawn.com on Friday. The captain, however, was quick to recognise the failure of the middle-order batters to score runs as was evident by their batting collapse in the low-scoring match against Sri Lanka (68, all out), which Pakistan won by two wickets and not a ball to spare. "Winning both series has been a great achievement but our middle order has to improve if we are to compete against the better-ranked teams." Pakistan's bowling remained consistently good during the tour as experienced swing bowler Qanita Jalil and leg-break bowler Bisma Maroof led the way with six wickets each. Masooma Junaid, who opened the bowling with Jalil, was also among the wickets with five in the four ODIs. Mir, herself a leg-break bowler and a lower-middle-order batswoman, was not far from the action as she contributed to the wickets (four in four matches) and scored 21 runs in her two outings. These figures, however, did not prove satisfactory to the captain as she scrutinized her performance. "I am quite satisfied with my contribution with the ball but my batting needs improvement as I come in at a crucial position in the line-up." Pakistan left for Sri Lanka without experienced all-rounder Asmavia Iqbal and top-order batter Nain Fatima Abidi, who are both key members of the squad but were forced out of the tour due to injuries. The fact that team still managed to remain unbeaten and lift two trophies did not go missing as Mir hailed her team's achievements in what she termed an important series. "We are going to face the same teams in our World Cup (2013) qualifiers in October-November this year, so it was important that we do well here (in Sri Lanka) under difficult conditions and take that experience to Bangladesh for the qualifying matches." While the women's team is not officially scheduled to play any international matches before heading to Bangladesh for the World Cup qualifiers, officials of the PCB Women's Wing have been in talks to play series against the West Indies and neighbours China. A 'friendly' bilateral series against the Indian 'A' team also remains a possibility as the two countries are in talks for the revival of bilateral sporting ties. Whether or not these international matches are materialized before the team embarks on World Cup qualification campaign, it will come as a surprise if the women in green fail to qualify. After all, they made ripples with their sixth-place finish at the 2009 World Cup, where Mir was Pakistan's vice-captain and leading wicket-taker. Since that outing in Australia, Mir has come a long way with a two-year learning curve. So has Pakistan women's cricket team.