Urooj Mumtaz advises Pakistan women cricket team to 'come out of their shell'

• “We are seeing them play well in patches, but not with consistency and that’s where the problem lies," she adds.
• Former chief selector suggests region-based teams for women's cricket.
• “We need quantity and quality both,” Urooj says.

KARACHI: The former captain of the Pakistan women’s cricket team Urooj Mumtaz has advised current players of the women's squad to “come out of their shell” instead of succumbing to pressure if they want to win big matches.

Talking to Geo News after the Pakistan women team’s faced another defeat in ICC Women’s World Cup, the former chief selector, now a commentator, said that the core group of the Pakistan team has enough experience with them and can’t be defended by saying they were under pressure of world cup.

“We are seeing them play well in patches, but not with consistency and that’s where the problem lies. Once they’re under pressure, they seem to go back to their default mode and get inside a shell then concede the match,” she pointed out.

“There have been impressive starts like they did against India or the way they started against Bangladesh today but despite that, they’ve not been able to cross that line to win the matches,” added Urooj.

She further added that players can have their stats improved but it is important if these numbers and stats have benefited your team’s cause.

Pakistan on Monday went down against Bangladesh by nine runs, they’ve lost all four games in this edition of the women's world cup. Overall, this is the 18th consecutive defeat for team Pakistan in the history of the world cup. They last won a world cup match in 2009 when Urooj was the captain.

Urooj — who also remained head of the women's cricket in Pakistan during the previous PCB regime — regretted that a talent development programme initiated in past couldn’t continue due to COVID-19 and insisted that it should be resumed.

She also suggested region-based teams for women's cricket.

“It is true that we have a limited number of players available in the pool and to overcome that we need to have more opportunities to develop players. We need to start programs in all six regions and have players play the sport consistently, form teams — at the national level and at U-19 level,” she said.

“We need quantity and quality both,” Urooj added.

She also welcomed the idea of having a PSL type tournament for women cricketers in the country saying that it will surely help the girls improve their standards in cricket.

“We have seen how PSL has helped our men’s team and I am hopeful that it will be the same for women’s team as well. It will help players gain confidence by playing alongside bigger names, but it will also give them awareness about the game which seems missing and will teach them how to win matches,” she said.

“It will also help Pakistan in identifying talent for the pool of international players,” the former captain concluded.