Women cricket team starts practice session ahead of World Cup qualifiers

KARACHI: Aiming to leave an impact with their performances, the Pakistan women cricket team – on Wednesday – launched its preparation for the upcoming Women’s World Cup qualifiers.

Pakistan was forced to play the qualifiers in Sri Lanka from 7th to 21st February after the team failed to finish among top four in recently concluded ICC Women’s Championship to ensure direct qualification.

27 players are invited by the Pakistan Cricket Board to the month-long preparatory camp under supervision of former Test Cricket Basit Ali, who feels that team is on path to improvement and has shown remarkable advancement in batting abilities recently.

“Although we didn’t win the series in New Zealand, but look at the way our team batted there,” Basit said.

Senior player Nain Abidi and batswoman Ayesha Zafar will miss initial phase of the training camp due to personal and educational engagements, respectively.

On the first day of camp at Karachi’s national stadium, the players concentrated on fitness and fielding skills, the drills will continue on Thursday as well before the friendly game scheduled to be played on Friday.