Fatima Sana to captain Pakistan in Emerging Women’s T20 Asia Cup

KARACHI: Fatima Sana will lead Pakistan in the upcoming ACC Emerging Women’s T20 Asia Cup that will be played in Hong Kong next month.

The national women’s selection committee has announced a 14-player squad — which includes four players who featured in the inaugural ICC U19 Women’s T20 World Cup earlier in the year — for the eight-team tournament that will be played from June 12 to 21.

The squad has been put together after observing performances in the T20 phase of the Pakistan Cup Women’s Cricket Tournament and emerging camp in Multan in March.

Fatima has played 31 One-Day Internationals and 24 T20 Internationals and the decision to name her captain for the tournament has been made after she captained Strikers, based on probables for this squad, to wins in all three matches in the above-mentioned tournament and led Blasters’ successful T20 Championship campaign in Lahore in December.

Pakistan are slotted in Group A with Hong Kong, India A and Thailand A. Pakistan will open their campaign on June 13 against Thailand A, after which they play Hong Kong and India A on June 15 and 17, respectively.

The top two teams from each group will qualify for the semi-finals, which will be played on June 19. The final will be held on June 21.

The emerging team’s pre-tournament camp will begin tomorrow (Thursday) at the Hanif Mohammad High Performance Centre and will run till June 8. They will depart for Hong Kong on June 9.

Squad: Fatima Sana (captain), Anoosha Nasir, Eyman Fatima, Gull Feroza, Gulrukh, Lubna Behram, Najiha Alvi (wicketkeeper), Natalia Parvaiz, Sadaf Shamas, Shawaal Zulfiqar, Syeda Aroob Shah, Tuba Hassan, Umm-e-Hani and Yusra Amir.

Reserves: Amber Kainat, Dua Majid, Fatima Khan and Rameen Shamim

Player support personnel: Aisha Jalil (manager), Mohsin Kamal (head coach), Muhammad Kamran Hussain (assistant coach), Muhammad Usman Shahid (analyst) and Rabia Siddiq (physiotherapist).