PESHAWAR: Pakistan Cricket Board, in a historic move on Saturday, launched a girls under-17 cricket academy here for the first time under the aegis of PCB Women’s Wing at the premises of Frontier College for Women in which 20 females cricketers have initially been short-listed for training.

“With the establishment of the first PCB academy for girls, a long awaited demand of women cricketers in thisregion has been fulfilled,” said Rahim Bibi who is PCB’s Woman Coordinator in Peshawar. “There is a lot of talent among female cricketers in Peshawar and other districts and the PCB academy will groom them now.”

She disclosed that fifty girls appeared in the two-day open trials from various schools in Peshawar out of which 30 were short-listed and finally twenty players were selected.

The selected girls would also represent Peshawar Region in the forthcoming 2nd PCB National Inter-School Girls Cricket Championship which begins from Sept 23 in Lahore.

The players of the academy would do their training four days a week.

The players short-listed for the academy training are Mahnoor Naeem,, Moomna, Mahnoor Ahmad, Hadia Khan, Suhra Shaheen, Mahnoor Aftab, Faryal Aman, Natasha, Bakhtawar, Kashmala Ali, Kalsoom, Hira, Muskan Zaman, Raheela, Razia, Komal, Salma Aziz, Aiman, Gul Rukh and Asmat.

Published in Dawn September 4th, 2016