With less than a month to go before the Women’s ODI World Cup begins in India and Sri Lanka at the end of September, preparations are in full flow for teams across the world gunning for some major silverware.
One of the hopefuls this year are Pakistan, who will see their team try to take big steps forward with a performance of substance. The team will play their cricket in Colombo, and while the odds of winning the trophy itself are low, the idea will be to keep going as far as possible and to produce some results for fans back home to be proud of.
In order to do so, Pakistan captain Fatima Sana is taking a page out of the book of a man who knows what it takes to win a World Cup campaign in the subcontinent. Speaking in an interview with PTI, she said that MS Dhoni’s leadership and captaincy serves as an inspiration ahead of Pakistan’s WC campaign.
“It is natural to be a little nervous initially when captaining in a big tournament like the World Cup, but I take inspiration from Mahendra Singh Dhoni as a captain,” said Sana in an interview.
“I have seen his matches as India and CSK captain,” she continued. “His on-field decision-making, calmness and the way he backs his players, there is a lot to learn from that. When I got the captaincy, I thought that I have to become like Dhoni. I also watched his interviews and got to learn a lot.”
‘Still a barrier we have to break through…’
Overall, the goal for Pakistan remains to punch above their weight by making the knockout stage. Sana promised that the ‘jinx’ would be broken by this unit, especially given the understanding of how important this was for the nation’s hopes of growing women’s cricket.
“This time, the jinx will definitely be broken because the young players know how important this tournament is for Pakistan women’s cricket. We will not think about the past. My goal is to take the team to the semifinals,” she said.
She admitted that women’s cricket is on the come-up back home in Pakistan, a successful World Cup campaign was still essential for the attention to break through the noise. Speaking of it as a ‘barrier’, she nevertheless was up for the challenge.
“In Pakistan, girls have started playing cricket in schools and international matches are being telecast live. ICC has also taken a good initiative by increasing the prize money for the Women’s World Cup, which will inspire budding players in Pakistan. But there is still a barrier which we have to break through this tournament,” concluded the Pakistan captain.