Cricket Queen Bismah becomes first Pakistani woman to complete 2000 runs in T20Is
By; Asghar Ali Mubarak
The Pakistani women cricket team’s captain and cricket queen Bismah Maroof on other day became the first Pakistani woman to complete 2000 runs in women’s T20 internationals. Pakistan’s left-handed batting star Bismah Maroof tied the knot with her cousin Abrar Ahmed in Lahore last year in a traditional Pakistani wedding. The husband of Pakistan’s highest scorer in One Day International cricket is a software engineer by profession. Bismah Maroof (born 18 July 1991 is an international cricketer from Pakistan and current captain of Pakistan national women’s cricket team. Bismah was part of the Pakistan squad at the 2009 Women’s Cricket World Cup in Australia. She was part of the team that won a gold medal against Bangladesh at the 2010 Asian Games in China. She was named vice-captain of the Pakistan squad that won a second successive gold medal against Bangladesh at the 2014 Asian Games in South Korea. On 11 October 2017, Bismah was selected as captain of the Pakistan women’s cricket team ahead of the New Zealand series in the UAE. In the series, Pakistan won their first ever ODI against the New Zealand in the third match. In March 2018, under her captaincy Pakistan clean swept Sri Lanka 3-0 in the ODI series on the Sri Lanka tour. This was only the second time that Pakistan team won an ODI series 3-0. In the T20 series, Pakistan defeated Sri Lanka 2-1.She was the leading run-scorer for Pakistan in the 2018 Women’s Twenty20 Asia Cup, with 143 runs in five matches. In October 2018, she was named in Pakistan’s squad for the 2018 ICC Women’s World Twenty20 tournament in the West Indies. In October 2019, she was named as the captain of the Women’s Global Development Squad, ahead of a five-match series in Australia. Bismah, 28, reached this milestone during her 29-ball-34 in first T20I against Bangladesh women cricket team in Lahore that also helped her side complete a 14 runs win.She reached this milestone with a superb stroke towards fence for four runs off right-arm medium pacer Panna Gosh in 6th over of Pakistan’s innings.While she’s first Pakistani woman to reach this milestone, she is only the third from Asia to do so after Indian duo of Mithali Raj and Harmanpreet Kaur.With 2023 runs in 95 innings, Bismah is now on the 8th place in all time leading run scorers in Women T20Is. The list is led by New Zealand’s Suzie Bates who has 3100 runs to her credit.Interestingly, she is only the second overall cricketer from Pakistan (both men and women) to score 2000 runs in T20Is after Shoaib Malik. Malik has scored 2251 runs in 103 T20Is for Pakistan. Bismah has been in superb form this year, with 299 runs in 9 innings, and she is Pakistan’s leading run scorer in calendar year 2019.
More over Pakistan women cricket team defeated Bangladesh by 14 runs in the first T20I played here at the Gaddafi Stadium on Saturday. This was also Pakistan women’s fourth win in six T20Is at home. Batting first, Pakistan cricket team scored 126 for 7 (Maroof 34, Sohail 33, Alam 4-17). In reply, Bangladesh women team could score 112 for 7 (Rumana 50, Amin 2-13) in the 20 overs.
Bangladesh women’s senior seamer Jahanara Alam took four wickets and all-rounder Rumana Ahmed struck her maiden T20I fifty, but it couldn’t help visitor from securing victory.
In pursuit of 127, Bangladesh women had lost both their openers inside the third over and slumped further to 47 for 2 in 12 overs. Rumana counterattacked and was particularly severe on Maroof, taking 23 off a mere seven balls from the Pakistan women captain. Rumana took the chase to the last over, leaving her side needing 18 with four wickets in hand.
However, she was bowled by Aliya Riaz off the third ball, as Bangladesh women eventually lost by 14 runs. Riaz ended with economical figures of 4-0-12-1. Left-arm finger spinner Sadia Iqbal returned figures of similar impact on T20I debut: 1 for 16.
Earlier, having opted to bat, Pakistan women lost both their openers cheaply to Alam, but Maroof and Sohail put on 60 off 59 balls to revive the innings. Although both batsmen fell in successive overs, lower-order contributions from Iram Javed (21 off 17 balls) and wicketkeeper Sidra Nawaz (16* off 4 balls) took the hosts to 126.
