Women's Asia Cup: Pakistan cricketers fail to impress

Now that Dr Nasim Ashraf is at the helm of affairs, he should look into this genre of cricket and produce a special package and award system for female cricketers

While women cricket quietly worked wonders worldwide in 2006, Pakistan's female cricketers have miserably failed to impress in the 'men's game'. They rather seem to have retrogressed as far as their perforamcne is concerned. It's now quite apparent that women's cricket did not get significant boost from the patronage of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB).
The recently-concluded 3rd Women's Asia Cup at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium in Jaipur, India, is a case in point. Pakistan women cricketers exhibited a pathetic show at this mega regional event, losing all the four games in bizarre fashion.

Winning and losing are part of the game, but the way they lost was presenting a win on a platter to their opponents, with no resistance and fight at all. A 'definite' loss and that too with whopping margins was the name of the game as far as their play in the Asia Cup on Indian soil was concerned.

In an inconsequential match for either team, Pakistan crawled to defeat after defeat. On the contrary, their Indian counterparts exhibited an excellent display of their skills, winning all their four matches in the three-team tournament, contested on a double-league basis, collecting 19 points at a net run-rate of +1.427 and also winning the tournament in style for the third consecutive time after beating Sri Lanka in the final.

Sri Lanka Women were second, with two wins and two losses in four matches that got them nine points and a net run-rate of -0.092. The Pakistan Women led by Urooj Mumtaz lost all their four matches. They didn't get any points and had a poor run-rate.

On December 13, India beat Pakistan by 80 runs at the same venue here. The next day, they were defeated by Sri Lanka by seven wickets. Last Sunday, Sri Lanka beat them again by five wickets while India hammered them on December 19 last by a 103-run difference.

India rounded off a sensational year with an unsurprisingly one-sided victory over Sri Lanka to take their second Asia Cup title in 12 months. They stormed through the tournament with win after win and eventually rolled Sri Lanka over to win by eight wickets in the final.

India's grand win in the 3rd Asia Cup caps a year of prosperity both on and off the pitch. In fact the Indian women left their mark on cricket in 2006. They beat England in a Test for the first time, and on English soil too, to take the series 1-0.

The reality is that they have benefited in the real sense of the word from their board's merger with the richest cricket board, the BCCI, which has provided them with better fees, facilities and rewards.

For the first time in its history the BCCI is taking its role in the development of women's cricket seriously, and has announced that each player who was part of the women's team that beat England and then won the Asia Cup would receive a bonus of one lakh rupees (US$2000). This would prove quite encouraging for the female cricketers, who have been good in the entire region.

When the side embarked on their 40-day tour of England in 2006, each was handed travellers' cheques and currency worth £1100 (US$2000), an unheard of thing in women's cricket. India's captain Mithali Raj is confident that with the new cashflood, the women can up their game to play more exciting, attacking cricket in the coming years.

In 2006 they have touched new heights and attained few a milestones. No team can touch them in the regional encounters particularly in the prestigious Asia Cup. They have lifted the title three times out of three -- but already they will be working towards their next big target: to lift the World Cup.

They became the first team in the subcontinent to reach the final last year, but fell away drastically to Australia. They will now be aiming to go one better, in Australia in 2009.

It may be mentioned here that last year the ICC merged with the IWCC. But it seems that Pakistan female cricketers have hardly benefited from the merger as they have disappointed the followers with their continued bad show.

As far as India is concerned, they long before the mergers have been benefiting from huge improvements -- getting to play in better stadiums, with better facilities and vastly increased match fees.

India's Anjum Chopra was also on the Award list of the ICC Awards in the category of first ICC Female players of the Year, which was won by Australia's captain Karen Rolton. On the contrary Pakistan female cricket did not get any boost from the patronage of PCB. Now that Dr Nasim Ashraf is at the helm of affairs, he should look into this genre of cricket and should produce a special package and award system for female cricketers on the lines of the BCCI to give a boost to women's cricket.

It may be mentioned that Pakistan is staging the qualifying tournament in 2007, but that is not enough as staging an event is something different from giving performance. Female cricketers should also work hard to impress with their performance to help convince the decision makers to allocate more and more funds for them.

To conclude one may say that women's cricket in India is heading in the right direction but in Pakistan it lags far behind. The irony is that it also does not promise any signs of improvement in the near future. Only through sincere efforts on parts of those at the helm of affairs and dedication on part of female cricketers the situation can lead to a change in the long run.