LAHORE: The National Triangular Women’s One-day Championship will be held here at the Bagh-i-Jinnah ground from Sept 17 to 26.

Defending champions PCB Dynamites will seek to complete hat-trick of the title while Blasters and Challengers are the other competing teams. Kookaburra ball will be used for the event to be played on a double-league basis.

The winners of the championship will pocket Rs500,000 while the runners-up team will receive Rs250,000. In addition to this, for the first time each player will be paid Rs10,000 as match fee.

Furthermore, six women umpires namely Afia Amin, Humairah Farah, Nazia Nazir, Riffat Mustafa, Sabahat Rasheed and Shakila Rafiq will officiate in this tri-series.

The selection panel of Urooj Mumtaz will use the event along with the recent international performances, as the basis for selection of Pakistan women’s senior and ‘A’ teams for the forthcoming home series against Bangladesh and the tour to Sri Lanka (in October) for the ACC Women’s Emerging Cup.

Apart from these two important international events, the women’s calendar also comprises two ICC Women’s Championship fixtures against India and England.

Pakistan presently sit fifth on the points table and have a strong chance of qualifying directly for the ICC Women’s World Cup 2021 in New Zealand if they finish in top-five, with New Zealand qualifying automatically as the hosts.

Pakistan’s most significant international assignment in the 2019-20 season will be the 2020 ICC Women’s T20 World Cup in Australia, to be held from Feb 21 to March 8. To prepare for the T20 World Cup, Pakistan women will play three T20 Internationals against West Indies in Australia.

Apart from the above-mentioned events, other domestic competitions include the National Triangular Women’s T20 Championship, which will be held in January 2020, and a series of three 50-over and three T20 matches between Pakistan Greens and Pakistan Yellows (April 2020) featuring the top 30 female players.

Squads selected for the National Triangular Women’s One-day Championship:

BLASTERS: Rameen Shamim (captain), Aliya Riaz, Almas Akram, Areeb Shamim, Ayesha Zafar, Hafsa Khalid, Kainat Hafeez, Najiha Alvi, Nashra Sandhu, Umaima Sohail, Noreen Yaqoob, Sidra Amin, Tooba Hasan, Waheeda Akhtar

CHALLENGERS: Bismah Maroof (captain), Aroob Shah, Diana Baig, Fatima Sana, Hafsa Amjad, Hurraina Sajjad, Iram Javed, Javeria Rauf, Khadija Chishti, Maham Manzoor, Natalia Pervaiz, Saba Nazir, Sadia Iqbal, Sidra Nawaz

DYNAMITES: Nida Dar (captain), Anam Amin, Ayesha Naseem, Ayesha Naz, Nahida Khan, Fareeha Mehmood, Ghulam Fatima, Javeria Khan, Kainat Imtiaz, Maham Tariq, Muneeba Ali, Sana Mir, Soha Fatima, Subhana Tariq.

Published in Dawn, September 14th, 2019