While disappointed at the 93-run loss in the third and final ICC Women’s Championship ODI against Sri Lanka on Sunday, Pakistan head coach David Hemp was overall pleased with the performance of his side that won the three-match T20I series 3-0 and the ODIs 2-1 against the touring Sri Lanka.
The tour culminated with Sri Lanka’s lone win of the tour on Sunday after the Bismah Maroof-led Pakistan had clean swept the T20Is and won the first ICC Women’s Championship series for the 2022-25 cycle at Karachi’s Southend Club, the venue that staged all six matches.
Pakistan collected four points from their two wins and currently sit on the top of the 10-team standings. Top six teams including the tournament hosts will qualify for the ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup 2025.
Hemp feels that Pakistan would have to keep the momentum going in the 50-over format as they are likely to get stiff competition from teams like Sri Lanka and South Africa for direct spots to the mega event in three years’ time.
While Pakistan’s next qualifying fixtures are a few months away (November against Ireland at home), the T2oI side has a busy season ahead with a tri-series in Ireland followed by the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham.
Prior to the team’s departure to UK for the twin assignments early next month, Hemp and the team management will work closely with players in a preparatory camp in Islamabad.
Hemp is confident that the team will build onto the success achieved against Sri Lanka and will be ready to take on stiffer opponents in the UK.
Pakistan Women’s Head Coach David Hemp: “Today [third ODI] was disappointing we certainly didn’t do ourselves justice across all skillsets. But overall I am quite pleased with the five wins we achieved. The teams we will be scrapping with for the 2025 World Cup qualification spots are likely to be teams like Sri Lanka and South Africa so every win and every point becomes important.
“It is a big positive for us that the games that we won we had a different player of the match in each game which means we are not relying on one or two key players. Tuba Hassan and Ghulam Fatima stepped-up in the series and we didn’t have Nashra Sandhu here due to an injury. With all these players in the spinners pack, we have quality and depth for the selectors to consider. Amongst the batters it was great to see Sidra Amin score another century. I still believe as a batting group we can score 230-240 regularly and I want the players to be more consistent.
“Expectations wise we want to reach the semis in the Commonwealth Games and while we have a tough group with Barbados, India and Australia, I believe that if you have to excel in such events you have to win the big games. Before the Commonwealth Games we have the tri-series in Ireland with Australia, the current world champions as the third team. Besides Australia Ireland will be a big challenge as they have recently beaten South Africa. The tri-series will provide us excellent preparation before we feature in the Commonwealth Games.
“Before heading out to Ireland we will have a camp in Islamabad where we will have the 15-member squad plus the reserves so I am confident that we will have adequate preparations for the two tours.”
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