ICC Finalized Sana Mir as ICC Women’s T20 World Cup Qualifier ambassador.

ICC has finalized Pakistani legend and Former Captain Sana Mir, as ambassador for the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup Qualifier. Sana, who represented her country in 226 international Matches, of which 137 as a captain – would be keeping a close eye on the 10 participating teams and their players in the two-week long tournament, said a press release by International Cricket Council. The former Captain is looking forward to an intense battle for the two finalist spots for the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup in Bangladesh later this year, as the action in Abu Dhabi gets underway from April 25 to May 7. Sana who was admired her role said, “Other than the big qualification opportunity for two teams, this tournament will provide excellent exposure to the Associate Cricket teams and their players. The women’s game has become more and more competitive in recent years and the 10 nations involved in the Qualifier possess a number of quality players.” As a captain and player, she has experience in participating in a number of qualifying events for Pakistan, particularly the 2008 edition of the ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup Qualifying Series where her 70 runs and nine wickets bagged her the joint Player of the Series award. As Pakistan’s star all-rounder and go-to performer in her 14-year career, she scored 2432 international runs while her off-break bowling earned her 240 international wickets. “For women’s cricket to grow further, the regional events and the Qualifier are incredibly important. While Sri Lanka and Ireland will probably be favourites to qualify alongside Thailand, teams like Scotland, Netherlands, UAE, Uganda and Zimbabwe surely have the potential to cause major upsets and make their way through to the semis and eventually to the final as well. “I am particularly keen to see the progress of some of the Zimbabwe players whom I worked with in my mentorship role during the inaugural ICC Women’s U19 T20 World Cup in South Africa last year.” Sana has rich experience of the T20 World Cup with a total of 24 matches played, she also captained Pakistan in five editions. In these fixtures, Sana scored 234 runs and took 18 wickets. Sana feels that the T20 format continues to evolve, with the players in the women’s game also looking at scoring faster and batting more aggressively than before. “The T20 format continues to grow in terms of tactics and playing style and the format remains tough to predict. The batters continue to raise the standard of the game while the bowlers have also developed some great skills at combatting the big hits and bigger hitters.