LAHORE:  Pakistan Football Federation (PFF)'s President Makhdoom Syed Faisal Saleh Hayat has approved National Champion Young Rising Star’s captain and central defender Sana Mehmood as the new captain of Pakistan’s national women’s team.

Pakistan will appear in the eight-nation SAFF women’s football championship that will begin on December 12 in the tourist resort of Cox’s Bazaar, Bangladesh. The hosts are placed in Group A along with South Asian Games champions India, Sri Lanka and Bhutan while Pakistan are bracketed in Group B with Nepal, Afghanistan and Maldives. Two top teams from each of the two groups will play in the semifinal.

Sana, 21, took over the captain's arm band from midfielder Ishrat Fatima of Lahore's Sports Sciences Department who captained Pakistan at Dhaka's earlier this year in the five-nation league of the 11th South Asian Games 2010Asmaa Usman will be the vice-captain.

Young Rising Star’s Asmara Habib, HESCO's Naila Rani, and Diya FC's Marium Laghari will earn international caps for the first time while the other fifteen, including Sana, have already represented Pakistan in the 11th South Asian Games.

Sana Mehmood is the only female footballer of Pakistan who lifted the National title twice. On both occasions Young Rising Star FC edged out Pakistan WAPDA in 2008 and 2010. YRS is a team organized by the US Embassy in Pakistan as part of a 2007 State Department Youth Enrichment Program (YEP) and they won the National Championship in their second attempt a year later.

Pakistani team is comprised of Sana Mahmood (Young Rising Star) Captain, Asmaa Usman (HEC) VC, Syeda Mahpara, Malaika Noor, Asmara Habib, Sahar Zaman (Young Rising Star), Shumaila Sattar, Naila Rana, Humera Nazir, Nadia Bhatti (WAPDA), Mehwish Khan, Hajra Khan, Marium Laghari (Diya FC), Shahida Ghulam Raza, Shelyla Baloch (Balochistan United), Mejzgaan Orakzai, Abeeha Haider (Islamabad), Ishrat Fatima (Sports Sciences). The stand byes are Roshnan Ali (Young Rising Star) and Afshan Altaf (Sindh). – PPI