“Thanks to the new domestic set-up allowing all cities to play, spinner Elizabeth Barkat was discovered just before the Women’s World T20 last year and we can’t do without her now. And pacer Diana from Gilgit is our recent discovery. If she performs well during the Cup, she makes a place for herself in the team,” he said.

The final camp before the World Cup was also  held in Muridke, which is situated just outside of Lahore, and the squad ran into difficulties when it started raining cats and dogs for some three days continuously there, which resulted in their missing net practice and their friendly matches with boys’ cricket academy teams. It was raining as hard in Lahore as well so going there for practice was also of no use. That was when the chief coach Mohtashim, deputy coach Tahir Mahmood and trainer Yasir Malik decided to hold indoor training sessions.

Taking the girls to the Green Room at the Lahore Country Club, Muridke, the coaches and trainer stepped outside while the girls held an aerobics session. “Half an hour?” asked Mohtashim. “No, Sir, 45 minutes,” corrected Sana.

“We trust them to do aerobics on their own,” explained Mohtashim later as they might have some reservations about our being there. “I trust my senior girls completely. They will hold a tough workout session as all in my team have become very serious about their fitness lately after they started winning international matches,” he said.

Sana from the start gave away strict orders to stop laughing. Qanita, too, kept an eye on all as they worked on their cardiac fitness. After 15 minutes the ones in the front moved to the back of the room and the ones at the back came ahead. No one was allowed to hide at the back. And when the pace of the music picked up all together, captain included, finished their session with bhangra. And unaware about the girls transforming from grasshoppers to leaping frogs inside, the coaches and trainer tapped their feet outside.

The aerobics was followed with a strength and endurance training session by trainer Yasir Malik with Mohtashim bucking up the girls by admiring their will to not let nature come in the way of their hard work. “Likewise you also have to handle different conditions during your matches. You need to be able to field for 50 overs and not get tired to bat or bowl as well,” he told them. “This strength and endurance training will come in very handy for that,” he said.

Meanwhile, having worked so strenuously during their aerobics session, the girls’ hands kept slipping while doing pushups on the floor that had become moist from their perspiration. Towels were brought in to wipe the floor before they could continue.

Makeovers

The girls were allowed a day off during camp when the Women’s wing had arranged makeovers for them at the Depilex Institute in Lahore. The big PCB coach was boarded once again to head to the beauty salon. But if you think that it must have been a time for relaxation for the players, you couldn’t be more wrong.

Any normal young girl would have a field day getting a facial, manicure/pedicure and hair cut but not our girls. “Why do we need to go there?” Sana was continuously asked by one player or the other a day before the parlour visit. “They worry if it will hurt,” Sana laughed. “I got a call from the salon earlier and they wanted to know if we were all excited, I didn’t have the heart to tell them that the girls would rather run extra rounds in the ground than go for a makeover,” she shared.

And just as the coach entered Lahore city, Elizabeth headed towards the door. “May I go home instead? It is near from here. I’ll come back when you all are done, I promise,” she pleaded with her captain, who reasoned with her that she didn’t have the authority to let anyone off the bus without Women’s wing manager Ayesha Ashhar’s permission, who was in Islamabad attending a family engagement at that point. So Elizabeth and the others got hair treatments, skin health consultations where they were educated about sun blocks, etc., by the experts.

“Giving them free makeovers was my daughter Redah’s idea,” said beautician Mussarat Misbah. “It is just our way of showing support for the team,” she added.

“I feel bad saying this, but I didn’t even know that we had a women’s cricket team,” said Redah Misbah-Qureshi. “It was only recently when I read that the men’s team had lost in last year’s World T20 and the girls team had beaten India that I learnt about them. Then I Googled them to know more about them. I found out that they have been around for over 10 years now. Looking at their pictures, I thought that they were nice looking girls who could use some help in the grooming department so we got in touch with the PCB Women’s wing and invited the team over,” she said.

“These girls represent Pakistan. We are proud of them. And when the foreign female tennis stars could be so conscious about their looks, our girls, too, don’t have to look like Plain Janes,” she said.