Pakistan’s Women’s cricket team has been under siege from critics since losing all their matches in the ongoing World Cup. Their defining game against New Zealand ended up washed out due to rain. After nearly three hours of waiting for the weather to clear up, they called the match off. This decision put Pakistan extremely close to being eliminated from the tournament themselves. They’re certainly unlucky to not have any wins in five matches. To have any prayer at advancing, they need to beat both South Africa and Sri Lanka in their last two games.
Maybe they knew that in their last match, Pakistan had only scored 92 runs and lost five wickets in 25 overs. Sadly, rain forced the quarterfinals to go into suspension before they could play any further. Aliya Riaz was the chief architect, top-scoring with an unbeaten 28 runs. She helped bring some composure into the innings with Sidra Nawaz after a swift team collapse at the start of the innings. Pakistan’s captain, Fatima Sana, bowled out by New Zealand’s Melie Kerr. At the other end, Natalia Parvaiz became Eden Carson’s first victim, with Sophie Devine taking the catch to send her back to the pavilion. Originally the team was dealt a very difficult hand to begin with. They lost both their openers, Omaima Sohail and Muneeba Ali, in the first four balls of the match itself.
New Zealand’s Lea Tahuhu delivered a strong performance, taking two wickets for just 20 runs, contributing to Pakistan’s batting difficulties.
Following the game, Fatima Sana admitted that they were too reliant on her performance, and that there needs to be more depth in their batting.
“We need to improve our batting. We will try to win the next two matches and try to end our tournament on a high note.” – Pakistan captain Fatima Sana
The rain abandonment also served to make Pakistan’s hopes of progressing that much more precarious. Having been on the receiving end of such misfortune in last year’s edition, New Zealand captain Sophie Devine agreed it was disappointing too, with cricket weather being notoriously fickle.
“We had a little bit of hope seeing the South Africa game the other day and that they were off the field for five hours and came back. We just needed the rain to hold off, but didn’t happen today.” – New Zealand captain Sophie Devine
Pakistan’s remaining Super 4 matches are being played at the R. Premadasa Stadium in Colombo. They need to pull together in double quick time to turn things round from where they stand now and rescue their World Cup challenge. As it is now, they have a steep hill to climb in order to guarantee themselves advancement into the tournament’s knockout stage.
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