Pakistan's women cricketers faced court cases and threats just to take the field
When sisters Shaiza and Sharmeen Khan tried to start women's cricket in Pakistan in 1996, they met court cases and even death threats, and the government refused permission for a match against India. The team played anyway, lost its first 18 internationals, and later won Asian Games gold twice.
The Khan sisters introduced the women's game in 1996, in a climate where some considered a national women's team illegal and officials ruled women could not play sport in public for religious reasons. Even so, the side made its one-day international debut against New Zealand early in 1997 and was invited to that year's World Cup in India, where it lost all five matches and finished last of eleven. Its first Test, against Sri Lanka in April 1998, was also a defeat.
Victory took time. The first came in the team's 19th match, against the Netherlands at home in 2001, in a series Pakistan won 4-3. Wins over a Test-playing nation arrived in 2004, when two games against the West Indies went Pakistan's way. That same Karachi series produced lasting Test records: a team total of 426 for 7 declared, Kiran Baluch's 242, and seven wickets for Shaiza Khan herself. Administration was messy too, with rival bodies feuding until the cricket board created a women's wing in 2005.
The Asian Games brought the high points. At Guangzhou in 2010, in the first women's cricket tournament at the Games, Pakistan thrashed Bangladesh by ten wickets in the final, with Nida Dar taking three wickets and scoring an unbeaten fifty. The president hailed it as a gift to a nation hit that year by floods affecting 21 million people. Four years later in Incheon they beat Bangladesh again in a rain-shortened final.
World Cup success has been harder. Pakistan went 13 years and 18 matches without a one-day World Cup win until beating the West Indies in Hamilton in 2022, though they have appeared at every T20 World Cup. Attitudes have softened, and cricket is now widely seen as progress for women's rights.
Source: Pakistan women's national cricket team
