Pakistan’s best women cricketers will be in action in the City of Lights, Karachi, from Friday, 19 May, in the Pakistan Cup Women’s Cricket Tournament 2022-23.
The tournament has been designed to provide maximum matches to these cricketers and will be played in two iterations – in the first, four sides will play T20 matches on a round-robin basis and three teams will play one-day matches on a double round-robin basis with the final on 4 June.
The first phase of the tournament will see probables for the ACC Women’s Emerging Teams Asia Cup – to be played in Hong Kong in June – showcase their skills and talent and get the desired match practice in challenging conditions under the banner of Strikers. The team will be captained by Pakistan ace fast bowler Fatima Sana.
The other three sides are Blasters, captained by Muneeba Ali, Pakistan’s only batter to score a century in T20Is, Challengers, led by left-arm orthodox Sadia Iqbal, and Dynamites, skippered by right-handed top-order batter Sidra Amin.
These six T20 matches will be played from 19 to 21 May at Hanif Mohammad High Performance Centre Oval Ground and State Bank Ground.
From 23 May, Blasters, Challengers and Dynamites will feature in the 50-over tournament. The three teams will take on each other twice and the top two teams will play the final at the State Bank Ground, which will be live-streamed on the PCB YouTube channel.
In line with its policy of incentivizing top performers, the winning side will bag Rs. 1 million and the runners-up will get Rs. 500,000. Player of the match award winners will get Rs. 20,000 and the player of the tournament will get Rs. 50,000.
Squads for the Pakistan Cup Women’s Cricket Tournament:
Blasters
| Muneeba Ali (c) | Aleena Shah | Anam Amin | Asma Amin | Ayesha Bilal |
| Ayesha Javed | Ayesha Zafar | Diana Baig | Fajar Naveed | Iram Javed |
| Kainat Imtiaz | Saba Nazir | Saiqa Riaz | Zaib-un-Nisa | Zunera Shah |
Challengers
| Sadia Iqbal (c) | Aiman Saleem | Amber Kainat | Areesha Noor | Fareeha Mehmood |
| Fatima Zehra | Huraina Sajjad | Javeria Khan | Javeria Rauf | Kaynat Hafeez |
| Maham Tariq | Masooma Zehra | Noreen Yaqoob | Saima Malik | Warda Yousuf |
Dynamites
| Sidra Amin (c) | Aliya Riaz | Bismah Maroof | Fatima Shahid | Ghulam Fatima |
| Humna Bilal | Khadija Chishti | Laiba Nasir | Maham Manzoor | Nashra Sandhu |
| Omaima Sohail | Rameen Shamim | Sidra Nawaz | Waheeda Akhtar | Yusra Amir |
Strikers
| Fatima Sana (c) | Anoosha Nasir | Dua Majid | Eyman Fatima | Fatima Khan |
| Gull Feroza | Gulrukh | Lubna Behram | Najiha Alvi | Natalia Parvez |
| Sadaf Shams | Shawaal Zulfiqar | Syeda Arooba Shah | Tuba Hassan | Umm-e-Hani |
Here’s the full schedule: (all matches to commence at 9:00 AM)
| First-Phase (T20 Format) | ||
| Fixture | Date | Venue |
| Dynamites vs Blasters | 19 May | State Bank Ground |
| Challengers vs Strikers | 19 May | Oval Academy Ground |
| Dynamites vs Challengers | 20 May | State Bank Ground |
| Blasters vs Strikers | 20 May | Oval Academy Ground |
| Dynamites vs Strikers | 21 May | State Bank Ground |
| Blasters vs Challengers | 21 May | Oval Academy Ground |
| Second-Phase (50-Over Format) | ||
| Blasters vs Dynamites | 23 May | State Bank Ground |
| Blasters vs Challengers | 25 May | State Bank Ground |
| Dynamites vs Challengers | 27 May | State Bank Ground |
| Dynamites vs Blasters | 29 May | State Bank Ground |
| Challengers vs Blasters | 31 May | State Bank Ground |
| Challengers vs Dynamites | 2 June | State Bank Ground |
| Final | 4 June | State Bank Ground |
Why can’t they name teams with local names or local language? Why everything needs to be catered to semi civilised Uber rich?