KARACHI: Pakistan women's cricket team is all set for a busy year ahead with several international assignments beginning with the upcoming quadrangular series in Colombo, Sri Lanka (April 18 to May 1). Dawn

“The quadrangular series to be played between Sri Lanka, Ireland, Holland and Pakistan will serve as a pre-qualifier for the players of all the participating teams before the Women's Cricket World Cup qualifiers taking place in Bangladesh in Oct-Nov this year,” said Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) Women's Wing Chairperson Bushra Aitzaz while speaking to on Wednesday.

“Each team will get plenty of practice playing each other. All in all one team will get to play three One-day Internationals and an equal number of Twenty20 matches during the two weeks,” she explained.

About the women team's other international assignments before the actual qualifiers, Bushra provided: “We also plan to tour the West Indies soon. Then China, too, had expressed their desire for a bilateral series. It was initially planned that they come here in April, which could not happen. But now our team will be visiting China first sometime in May.”

The chairperson also informed about possible friendship tours to Pakistan by Indian women and men's cricket clubs. “It is the Indian club 'A' women's team that wishes to play here and have invited us over as well. The PCB is working on a schedule for it, which will be announced shortly,” she concluded.

Meanwhile, probables for the forthcoming quadrangular series have been announced with all the players reporting to coach Mansoor Rana at training camp (April 6-17) at the National Cricket Academy in Lahore on Wednesday.

Players:

Sana Mir (captain), Javeria Wadood (vice-captain), Bismah Maroof, Nida Rasheed Dar, Asmavia Iqbal Khokhar, Sana Gulzar, Syeda Nain Fatima Abidi, Marina Iqbal, Masooma Junaid Farooqi, Kainat Imtiaz, Syeda Batool Fatima Naqvi (wicketkeeper), Qanita Jalil, Sadia Yousuf, Nahida Bibi.

Reserves:

Rabiya Shah, Sidra Amin, Faryal Awan, Nimra Imran.