Excited to be back playing international cricket: Javeria

KARACHI: Pakistan’s women’s cricket team captain Javeria Khan said the players were delighted to be back on the field after nearly 10 months.

She talked to the media online here on Saturday ahead of the departure of the team to South Africa.

“We had our training camp here at the National Stadium where we trained hard and had competitive games,” she said, thinking about the training camp and practise.

After a very long time, two players are making a comeback; Kainat Imtiaz and Ayesha Zafar, both of whom are in good contact. Our South Africa series is significant because, after a very long time, we are playing and it will help us prepare for the [2022 World Cup] qualifying round. When we go into the qualification stage, we’ll already have a lot greater knowledge of the best team mix. Hopefully, our youngsters can also learn by playing this series how to absorb pressure in international cricket.

When asked about the complexities of captaincy, Javeria said she would give it her greatest effort.

Leading one’s country is indeed a great privilege and I will do my hardest to fulfil my duties to the best of my abilities. I’m trying to try to make sure all the girls are in a stronger state of mind in order to do well. In my experience, captaincy should not bear additional responsibility along with it. Rather, it gives you extra transparency that I feel everyone should love.

Javeria said she was focused on looking forward while comparing the working methodology of the incumbent head coach with the previous coaches.

I wouldn’t dig into the background and would like to comment of our new set-up of coaching. Three months have elapsed since David Hemp joined us. His process of thinking centres around the notion of helping us to play modern-day cricket. And he wants us to be in the top four in the international rankings he’s been training us for,’ said the captain.

Instead of depending on any one in order to win games in South Africa, she said the team was seeking to protect all three departments.

The batters and bowlers had different training sessions, according to her, where they learned about the bad ties in the South African line-up and how they could manipulate them. She also added that the team had trained to bear in mind the vulnerabilities of South Africa.

Regarding the absence of daily captain Bismah Maroof from the team, the skipper said the team would certainly miss her.

Although she is the chief of this group and has done very well in both departments, we would surely miss Bismah. In the other hand, for young people, it’s a fantastic way to highlight their talents.

When asked to comment on the reduced number of players chosen relative to the men’s team due to Covid-19 problems, she said: “I think since we are playing a short series in South Africa, we have a large number of players.” Tests, ODIs and T20Is had to be played by the men’s side, while we had to appear in just three ODIs and as many T20 Internationals.

In the past, for a PSL style league for women cricketers, Javeria was very articulate.

She hoped that a women-specific league would soon materialise when asked if the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) could speed up the process now that Cricket Australia (CA) has a Big Bash League for its women cricketers.

The PCB takes things into consideration and waits for a greater pool of cricketers. It’s not long before we’re going to get our own women’s cricket team.