KARACHI: The Ramazan Women’s Night Cricket Tournament organised by KheloKricket is back.

Floodlights at the Kokan Park ground in Bahadurabad remained on again from Thursday to Sunday as this year’s edition, featuring eight teams, kicked off with six matches played on the first day.

Among the green, black, blue, orange, etc, kits, there was also one player standing out by sporting the Karachi Kings’ blue jersey.

When someone asked if the Pakistan Super League outfit was also a part of the Ramazan tournament, Yusra Amir, the player, winked at a friend and smiled.

“Talks are under way. Let’s see,” she replied vaguely before bursting into laughter.

“I’m just chilling right now, and this happens to be my favourite jersey. I’ll be wearing my team Fighters’ kit when we are playing,” she added.

Clowning around again she said she was also about to join the Karachi Kings.

“Oh yeah! Which player are you replacing there?” Someone asked.

“Imad Wasim! Who else?” She announced before running off to change ahead of her match.

Her coach, Muzamil Saquib, was also smiling in the background at the conversation he had overheard.

“What great kids! What great atmosphere,” he said, while also appreciating the nice crowd comprising mostly family members of the players cheering them on.

Saquib usually coaches boys. Asked if coaching girls was any different, he nodded.

“They have a mind of their own. They don’t like to be controlled so controlling them can be a bit challenging,” he said.

“Due to their ego coming in their way, they ask me why I didn’t send them to bat first, why I am not letting them bowl first,” he smiled.

“Controlling isn’t that challenging if you ask me,” Saba Baloch, skipper for the Smashers, another team featuring in the event, said.

“All I need to do is show them my eyeballs,” she shared.

Cheering for Yameena Zuberi, a class nine student and an all-rounder fast bowler for the Fighters team, was her mother, brother and big sister Yumna Zuberi.

Asked why she was not playing herself, the sister said that she was more into books than sports but she enjoyed watching Yameena play so had come to support her.

More supporters included Mubarak Jehan, mother of Pakistan’s national women cricket team player Shumaila Qureshi.

She was happy to note that her daughter’s team, Zain CC, had light green kits.

“It looks like my daughter is playing for Pakistan even now,” she said happily.

Just then there was loud cheering from all quarters as Shumaila opened her batting with a sixer.

Another national team player, Sana Taj, also featured in the tournament. The Women’s Night Cricket Tournament certainly turned out to be a star-studded affair. Sana’s mother also came to cheer for her.

The organiser of the tournament and CEO of KheloKricket, Hadeel Obaid, was also cheering for everyone from the sidelines.

She was glad to be hosting the event while also providing the players with the ground, facilities, exposure and opportunity of playing with national team players.

“I do it for them,” she told Dawn. “If I don’t do it, who will?” she asked while pointing out that women’s cricket had always been neglected.

“We would like to encourage and develop cricket in this arena,” she added, saying that the girls who had come to watch last year’s edition at the same ground came to play this time.

“We got so many registrations this year as compared to last year,” she said.

“There were 200 girls of whom we selected 100 to make up the eight teams,” she said.

“But looking at the huge turnout, we are planning to organise a 12-team event from next year,” she added.

“Obviously, for that to happen we will be booking the ground for more days,” she said.

“At the moment, it was a three-day event. The matches were always six-six over games. The first two days had six round matches each and then after a day’s break there were two semi-finals and final on the last day, which was Sunday,” she said.

Published in Dawn, May 28th, 2018