KARACHI, July 12: The coaching camp for young Under-17 women cricketers, underway at Muridke’s Lahore Country Club since June 22 under the guidance of the women’s national team coach Umar Rashid, concluded on a positive note on Saturday with the discovery of 12 to 13 talented girls among the 25 who reported there.

Speaking to Dawn on Saturday, Coach Umar said that he was happy to see so much talent as well as love for the sport among the young players. “They must have just started playing cricket some six months ago in their school or college but I can recognise pure talent when I see it.”

When asked if he would like to give some names, the coach said: “Our greatest discovery in Muridke came in the form of the 13-year-old Nimra Imran who happens to be equally effective with the bat as well as the ball.

The all-rounder is a medium-pace bowler and an excellent middle-order batsman,” said the former cricketer and coach who insists on calling the women players “cricketers” and not women cricketers.

“Well, a cricketer is a cricketer. You judge him or her by their game and not by their gender,” he says.

“Farzana Shafee, Mehvish Tariq, Faryal Awan, Sidra Ameen, Rabia Shah, Sadia Iqbal, Fatima Ali, Asifa Batool, Sana Gulzar, Shakila Naz, Qainat Imtiaz, Bakhtawar Iqbal, Badrunnisa and of course little Nimra are some of the names that I can give you off hand. They will all be playing in the forthcoming Twenty20 quadrangular cricket championship starting in Karachi from the 18th of this month.

“But we are also planning on forming another team of these girls. It will be our second strength after the national side,” said the coach who added that they also found many of the current national team players, namely, Javeria Khan, Nida Dar, Almas Akram, Sadia Yousuf, in the first such U-17 camp held in Karachi in January 2007.

“And even those who didn’t make it to the national side among those cricketers are playing for their regions.”

When asked why such a big gap between the two camps, Umar said: “I agree that we should be holding such camps regularly but we were also concentrating on the World Cup qualifiers last year.”

And would any of these girls be playing in the Women’s World Cup next year?

“They will have to work very hard on their fitness for that. See,” the coach explained, “Talent is one thing but grooming the talent and working on your fitness while developing the discipline to practice regularly in order to improve on your skills is something that one has to learn to do oneself if one is serious about a career in cricket. If these girls carry on with the good work they did at the camp and are able to bring their fitness level up to the national team’s standard, why not?”