A devastating opening spell by Sana Mir helped Pakistan Women skittle South Africa Women to their second lowest ODI total of 63 and eventually secure an eight-wicket win in their first ODI of the ICC Women’s Championship in Potchefstroom on Monday.
Mir’s four-for, two of which came on back-to-back deliveriesin the second over, wrecked the Proteas top order. Coupled with Fatima Sana’sdismissal of Lizelle Lee in the opening over, Mir’s demolition job neverallowed Africans to recover.
For the hosts, only Mignon du Preez () and Chloe Tryon (21)could reach double figures as Nashra Sandhu and Nida Dar cleaned up the rest ofthe line-up with two wickets a piece.
The start to Pakistan Women’s innings was exactly as theirSouth African counterparts’ as they lost their opening innings on the thirdball of the opening over with just four runs on the board.
However, one-down batter Javeria Khan made sure that thatsetback did not derail the run chase. Her unbeaten 34-run knock was enough forPakistan to even absorb the loss of Sidra Ameen (10).
Khan and Bismah Maroof (12*) made sure the team got over theline and register their first-ever victory in South Africa.
Mir was deservedly named the player of the match but sheinsisted that the result was the product of “a team effort for whicheveryone tried their hardest”.
“Nahida was exceptional in the slips. Nashra, myself… the young Fatima Sana gave us a quick breakthrough. Nida bowledbrilliantly, and Aalia [too] bowled well. Then our batters did the job. Bismahand Javeria finished it off.”
Now that they have the winning formula, Mir said the team”would like to stick to it”. She credited coach Mark Coles and hissupport staff for devising the team plan and hoped that “the team executesthe plans and repeats the performance in future matches as well”.Despite a dominant win, Mir wasn’t entirelysatisfied, saying that the team “gave away a few runs in the field andlost two wickets”, and could use some improvement in those areas.