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Directed Research Project

Pakistan’s Female Cricket
INTRODUCTION
Pakistan has been at the forefront in Cricket since its independence in 1947. The very first
captain was Abdul Hafeez Kardar who set the bars high for the next generations. Pakistan was
given the status of Test match at an ICC (Imperial Cricket Championship) meeting in England
in 1952.
Highlighting some of the big early matches played by Pakistan thereafter; In 1986,
Pakistan played for Austral-Asia Cup in Shurjah in UAE. Javed Miandad came out as a
“National Hero” because of his outstanding performance and the match is well remembered
because of its victory against Pakistan’s “arch rival”, India. Then comes the great 1992 World
Cup. Various, relatively younger players came out on the international stage. Led by Imran
Khan, his “Cornered Tigers” were able to pull off an amazing round and beat England in the
finals bringing home the sweet trophy. From that point onwards, Cricket has carved its way
into the heart and soul of Pakistanis. 2007 World Cup followed with no good fortune. Being a
captain, Inzamaam-ul-Haq resigned from the captainship which Shoaib Malik succeeded.
That is when Salman Butt was appointed as the vice-captain. The series ended with a nail-
biting match against India; Pakistan ended up as runners up.
Coming to the more recent ones, then Pakistan won hearts of thousands of people by leaving
its chief opponent India, short of 138 runs and bringing home the very first ICC Champions
Trophy in 2017. Fakhar Zaman was made the man of the match by the captain Sarfaraz
Ahmed. Our prominent figures included Junaid Khan and Hasan Ali. This proved to be a
good boost of confidence after miserably losing matches in 2016 ICC World T20 series. This
was followed by 2015 win in T20 series.

As clearly evident, Pakistani cricket team has experienced much uncertainty in terms of their
performance, struggling hard for the love of the country and crossing boundaries just to bring
success home.
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Women Cricket in Pakistan

Shedding some light on the scope that Women enjoy in terms of the game then PCB
introduced a Women’s Wing in 2005 expressing their vision as “maintain Pakistan’s position as
the premier producer of world class women cricketers” and to “maintain Pakistan women’s
team ranking among the top teams of the world.” PCB is said to have been annually spending
about 227 million on the promotional and developmental activities of the game at both,
International and Domestic Level. It is also currently in process of establishing 5 academies to
promote and encourage women cricket in areas like Lahore, Multan, Islamabad and,
Rawalpindi. In a way to improve the overall performance of the team, PCB has been
scheduling 2-3 annual tours to boost up the team’s efforts and results. PCB has introduced a
welfare scheme for appreciation purposes for the retired women who have played a crucial role
to represent the country as a whole. Currently, there are four departments to play on a domestic
level:
1. Higher Education Commission
2. Zarai Taraqiati Bank Limited.
3. Pakistan Education Board
4. State Bank of Pakistan

LITERATURE REVIEW
Gender in sports - Global aspects: The definition of sports goes beyond the conventional
perception of physical exertion or a mere competitive game to amusing means of enhancing
physical abilities and skills. The term sports by its nature is innately gender neutral. However,
generations and platforms have witnessed sports as an orbit of men with female athletes being
underrepresented.

The history has witnessed provision of limited opportunities to women and girls in sport that
have been justified on account of: perceived physiological differences between the sexes,
societal norms and attitudes, and organizational rules and support. In the early 1900s, medical
doctors and female physical educators used to believe that vigorous physical activity such that
required by sports would endanger a woman’s reproductive capacities and cause the
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development of "unsightly" muscle. In response to these concerns, early sport context for
female gender was limited to activities such as archery, dancing, croquet, golf, swimming, and
tennis. However, according to the recent research, no medical, mental, or emotional reasons
support the restriction of women from participating and competing in sport.

The discipline of sport for women was distinctly transformed during the decade of 1970s with
the initiation of Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW) in 1971 and Title
IX in 1972. AIAW emerged with the goal of being a "...model of athletic governance designed
for female student-athletes, which incorporated the prevailing women's sports philosophy"
(Deshpande, p. 546). Title IX was a civil law that states, “No person in the United States shall,
on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected
to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial
assistance” (Everhart, Pemberton, Gender Biased Support Value System).

Gender and culture: The culture plays a significant role in gender identity since the birth of a
child, a child is raised according to a his particular gender and therefore, gender is extremely
relevant while contemplating the ways in which a child is fostered. The attribution of particular
social roles is evident by the fact that young boys usually receive balls or some sports
equipment as gifts and toys while girls normally get dolls, or something similar. The things to
which kids are exposed to at such an early age play a major role in development of their skills,
abilities and preferences which eventually influence their career choice. Since childhood, the
kids are raised as such Male activities are normally focused on competitive, aggressive,
professional career while female activities usually promote cooperation and nurture. Hence,
female interest in sport is discouraged since early ages of a female individual. Even if a girl
develops her interest in sports by any chance then she does not get to socialize, discuss and
bond with other girls over such subjects. As stated by Murphy, “Women are more likely to
study together and talk about friends, family, and personal problems, whereas men are more
likely to watch movies or play sports together” (Cleveland, Stockdale, Murphy, 2000, p. 79)

The global culture has engendered the attribution of stereotypical gender roles such as
entrusting women with the responsibility of the household chores. According to American
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Sociological Association, 2016, America that is one of the most developed countries has shown
the trend of women doing the majority of household and childcare even if she had higher
earnings. At the same time, the career of sports involves busy and irregular schedules with busy
weekends (that often involves travelling). Since female athletes are expected to perform
childcare and housework too after reaching home pertaining/conforming to the conventional
gender roles so they find extremely difficult to balance this hectic routine and resultantly, the
females who are even interested in sports are reluctant to pursue that as a career and would
rather prefer regular work schedules so that they are able to fulfil their household obligations.

Gender discrimination in sports (in general):

The recent 2018 US Tennis Open finale in Wimbledon controversy sparked the debates
internationally about discrimination against the players’ gender and race. The heated argument
between the tennis star (Serena Williams) and umpire for three code violations including
calling umpire “thief” lead to imposition of penalty fine of $17000. This incident accentuates
the lack of tolerance to women frustration in comparison to men as similar behavior during the
game has been exhibited by several tennis male players who have never been subjected to such
penalty from the umpire.

Adam Grant (an American psychologist) tweeted after this incident and shed light on the
elements of sexism and racism in the gender biased world of sports:
“When a man a man argues with an umpire, it’s passion.
When a women does it, it’s a meltdown.

When a black women does it, it’s a penalty.” #DoubleStandards (Grant, Twitter)

According to an international organization “Women in Sports”, almost 40% of the women

face gender discrimination. Reported by The Guardian, the Women in Sports conducted survey
of 1152 women and men in sports and found starking differences in the response between both
genders like 72% males believed fair treatment while females agreed were 46%. It also
highlighted the fact that more than half of the national sports bodies globally fail to maintain
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minimum 30% sports representation of women in the board. This brings to a question mark
about the non-existent female leadership in sports (Barr, Women in sport).

Gender discrimination in sports is predominantly in domains of media coverage, monetary

compensations, scale of opportunities and post promotions.

According to Tucker Center for Research on Girls and Women in Sport, female participation
in sports on an international level is 40% while only 4% of all women sports get media
coverage. The lower coverage results in unequal viewership that results in less fan base as
compared to male counterparts, unequal sponsorship and advertisement, and hence, lesser pay.

In the context of sexual harassment, Women in Sports Report: “Beyond 30 per cent-
Workplace Culture in Sport” mentioned that about 30 percent of female athletes have admitted
experiencing inappropriate behavior of men.

The issue of no equal pay for equal play is evident by the existing wage discrimination in
sports. Steph Houghton, the best English footballer, is paid annually 4.5 times lesser than what
Wayne Rooney earns in a week. Tennis has depicted the least pay gaps among all sports;
however, Serena Williams earns approximately twice lesser than Novak Djokovic even though
both have won equal number of championships.

The magnitude of lesser opportunities is visible by the dearth of female coaches.

Title IX that initiated with the aim of promoting female athletes in educational institutions
failed to provide equal opportunities to women for leadership positions. This act of 1972
required government funds to be allocated to US female sports and ensured that the profession
of coaching women teams is made more convenient and more preferable. Prevalence of more
exposure of men caused them to penetrate into these leadership roles. At the same time, routine
of hectic schedule and increased travelling trips and camps discouraged women to infiltrate this
field of coaching. Currently, women led only 21% of women’s athletic programs at the college
level with women occupying only 33% of all administrative posts. Female athletic directors are
less than 20% at the high school level with female physical education directors being less than
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40% (Deshpande, p. 546). In United States, half of women's college teams are coached by men,
but only about 2% of men's teams are coached by women. Secondary schools have
demonstrated similar records too.

Women have encountered several questions regarding their physical fitness as Baron Pierre de
Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympics, stated in 1896, “No matter how toughened a
sportswoman may be, her organism is not cut out to sustain certain shocks” (Lilit, Gender
Discrimination in Sports).
It has been believed that physical sports damage female reproductive system. However,
research and data has demonstrated health benefits on physical, mental and social levels.
On a physical level, there is a close association of improved health and physical activity such
as reduced risk of chronic diseases, cardiovascular diseases, effects of osteoporosis,
degenerative diseases associated with aging, such as type-2 diabetes, hypertension, arthritis,
osteoporosis and cardiovascular abnormalities. The physical exertion of the training prevents
obesity and causes formation of healthy joint, bones, and muscles and stronger immune
systems. Studies have proven that premenopausal breast cancer chance can be reduced if
women exercise during their childbearing years.

On a mental level: sports have shown to facilitate good mental health for women of all ages,
including the management of mental disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease. The competitive
nature of sports promotes psychological well-being through building self-esteem, confidence
and social integration that inculcates mindsets of independence and self-sufficiency.
Additionally, it helps to reduce emotions of stress, anxiety, loneliness and depression that is
particularly important as studies have proven that rates of depression among women are almost
double than those of men in both developed and developing countries.

On a social level: Sport provides women and girls with an alternative avenue for participation
in the social and cultural life of their communities and promotes enjoyment of freedom of
expression, interpersonal networks, new opportunities and increased self-esteem. It provides
education opportunities and develops multiple essential life skills such as communication,
leadership, teamwork and negotiation. The general notion of gender stereotypes and
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discrimination is challenged by participation of women in sports, and can therefore be a vehicle

to promote gender equality and the empowerment of women. In particular, women in sport
leadership can persuade general public about women’s capabilities as leaders and decision-
makers, and that too in traditional male domains. This sport leadership also instills aspiration to
be leaders in the communities too and thus, boosts self-esteem. If girls are to grow up to be
leaders, they need comparable opportunities to develop their leadership skills through team
sports. Hence, the expansion of sports opportunities for women and girls will help achieve the
feminization of power in all realms (Women, gender equality and sport).

Gender discrimination in cricket in Pakistan:

Ranked in the top twenty of the ICC Women Player Rankings, Youlin interviewed the
forefront captain, Sana Mir, back in 2013. Being an outdoor person and more importantly a
patriot belonging to a military background, Sana Mir was determined to bring positive and
upward changes in cricket in Pakistan. After the win in 1992, she claims it to be an ‘instinctive’
career choice. She came at the forefront and joined the professional ground in 2011 and is said
to have sacrificed educational plans and jobs to fully engage in their love for cricket. When
questioned about the major problems, she explained how the financial situation is quite
different for men and women. Where there are several corporate bodies engaged in inter
departmental cricket at the first class level, women only have a single department, ZTBL.
There should be enough departments for Women to support them financially. The absence of
departments for women leave no choice for the regional players to work alongside in order to
support their families. Second problem that Sana mentioned pertained to transportation for
travelling purposes. This is not a minor issue as there is a lot of travelling involved and lack of
assistance will only increase the absence ratio.
Her interview, all in all, suggested how there is so much potential to represent women and
show the world how they are no less than men. She stated, “We want to work hard and prove to
the world that Pakistani women are talented and capable of taking on the best even though there
might be social constraints” (Sana Mir). (Cited!!)
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She further complained how because of societal pressures some women are forced to quit and
head on with their lives. She seems to have regarded society as the one in which people “cannot
stop giving advice to girls on living their lives in a certain way” (Sana Mir). (Cited!!)

Generally speaking, women in Pakistan have to face an influx of societal pressure. Primarily
from their very own families who are constantly on the verge of explaining and advising their
daughters on how sports is for men and what the society will think about them. Recent an ad
portrayed how a father stopped talking to his daughter for months when she decided to leave
the house to participate in some tournament, the commercial was heavily criticised and later
banned for showing such mindset which on the other side IS the bitter reality that girls here
have to face.
It is precisely very well written by Bina Shah in her article, “An evening with the girls in
green”. She writes, “Becoming a sportsman is a dream come true for the families of Pakistani
men; becoming a sportswoman can be a nightmare as families worry incessantly about their
daughters’ futures, marriages, and families”. (Cited!!)

Despite the constant torture and pressure, our girls are unstoppable as they have been
regularly attending their academies and trials. Talking about the academies that we have here in
Pakistan, then the most renowned academy is Zaheer Abbas cricket academy for women. These
academies are more than just a field where women can practice and get selected for teams.
These academies are a way forward for the future of Women’s cricket in Pakistan. Consistency
is the key here and proudly speaking, these academies are delivering exceptional performance
in motivating and encouraging our young girls to fight back their battles, come on the field and
unveil their hidden talent.

Girls at Dhabas meet and greet session with the current and a few former members of the
Pakistani cricket team after their smooth win at the 2016 T20 championship against
Bangladesh, was held at The Second Floor.
A major problem highlighted by the captain was the lack of sponsorships. She penned, “If we
got proper sponsorship, it would raise our confidence levels,”. She said these obstacles hold
them back in focusing on their fitness and diet. Secondly, she complained about the massive
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discrimination on the basis of their pay scale relative to that of men. Women earn around 1/9th
of the pay that male players get. Girls never get a chance to play off season as that in West
Indies teams in Australia and New Zealand; this ultimately leads to low-key media exposure.
Women’s matches are only played on PTV (i.e. if they are).
To deal with this problem, one of the artists from the band Zeb and Haniya, Zeb shook hands
with the girls back in 2011 and has encouraged and pushed them to be more widely exposed on
media. She has said to have written a song for them which is yet to be published because of no
sponsorships to date (2016). The chairperson of the women’s division of the Pakistan Cricket
Board, Bushra Aitzaz is also regarded as a major source of motivation for the girls.

Stats: In Pakistan Cricket Board, there is not a single female for the Board of Governors and
1 women in Management (Ms Naila Bhatti, Director Marketing). In the corporate structure only
2 women exist in the Women Selection Committee (Ms. Asmavia Iqbal) and Women Cricket
Wing (Ms. Ayesha Azhar). While Ms. Javeria Khan is the current Cricket Captain for Women.
So in the total of X number of corporate governance positions (Excluding captains which
should be obviously gender oriented) only 3 women here are in our national Pakistan Cricket
Board. (PCB website)
(Cited!!)

Buzz Hype.
On 19th March 2016, Pakistan male cricket team lost from India by 6 wickets in ICC T20
series while women cricket team beat India by 2 runs. Nonetheless, Pakistan’s nation on social
media and news channels expressed grief and the nation cried tears of sorrow and
disappointment for the loss of male cricket team. The news of success of female cricket teams
was published by a few newspapers and rarely featured in talk-shows. The nation grieved over
the loss of male cricket team but the fact of inability of female victory to institute a surge of
happiness is way more grieving.

The support of Pakistan government for sports, in general, through budget allocation and
funds has been quite dissatisfactory and inadequate. The total government expenditure on the
sector of sports is 0.51 % of federal budget that too primarily involves building and upgradation
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of infrastructure such as stadiums and grounds. Cricket constitute 21.30% of the total sports
budget (Yaqoob, PCB Budget). While female cricket is allocated 3.55% in comparison to males
that dominate the rest of the budget (Women’s cricket, PCB).
b. Statistical comparison of the Number of Local Matches and Championships provided
to both genders.
c. Statistical comparison of participation in international crickets tournaments
nationally.
d. School Surveys of cricket clubs
e. Sponsorship comparison data.

RESEARCH QUESTION
Challenges and Opportunities faced by the Female Cricketers in Pakistani Society.

METHODOLOGY
We spanned our exploratory research on multilevel analysis to discover underlying factors on
Meso, Micro and Macro Level which affect female cricket in Pakistan’s domestic and
international representation. The scope of our research was inclusive with cricketers from every
level, schools and colleges to domestic and national players to international cricketers and
alumna. Hence there was no restriction placed on the grade of the cricketer or the level/type of
organizations involved.
As units of observation for our micro-level analysis we conducted interviews of Pakistan
National female cricketers from National Team like Irum Javed, Ayesha Zafar, Javeria
Khan,Dania Baig, Aliya Riaz (Check Appendix for the complete list). Since the national female
player representation is very small number, our target number of respondents in the optimistic
scenario was to incorporate opinions of all the current female national players at PCB.
However, the availability of the players was the limiting factor, which would only be solved by
incorporating flexibility in timings, location and methodology of the interviews. Initially, we
limited demographics of our target population to be in Lahore which would be physically
accessible for us to set interviews and focus groups. We also tried incorporating players as well
as stakeholders from Karachi and Southern Punjab through discussion over internet
conferencing applications. Luckily, in the timeframe of our research there were National
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Cricket competitions where it enabled us to conduct interviews of National players who are
resident of other cities like Karachi and Peshawar.

In order to get organizational perspective and overview, we included organizations from

private Universities, Colleges and Schools to government organizations like Pakistan Cricket
Board (PCB), Pakistan Super League (PSL) and Lahore Regional Cricket Association (LRCA).
For universities we conducted focus groups for university cricket teams, sports heads and
coaches from LUMS, KC and UCL. Fortune also enabled us to attend at talk with Mr Ehsan
Mani, Current chairman PCB & PSL and former president ICC, where we got the chance to
interview him. Since the scope of our research is restricted to Lahore on domestic level, so we
interviewed official at LRCA (Mr Waseem Anwer, Secretary Lahore Regional Cricket
Association). The discussions enabled us to sketch the bigger picture of the macro level factors
like political, social and economic incentives and believes which shape the female cricket of
our country as of today.

We also interviewed general public from different universities to know what their perspective
is about females sports, the differences of opinions and aspirations to be noted in the female
and male respondents towards the cricket in general. (Questionnaire attached in Appendix).
Interviewing families of female cricketers was included in the initial plan of our research, so
that we could know their perspective, but we could only be able to meet cricketers during the
matches or in the organizations so that idea was put on hold. Later discussing with cricketers
about their family relations, we realized that the purpose to involve family was already served
in their answers. Hence the idea of having focus group of family members was put on hold and
considered redundant. We also watched and observed local matches like Kinnaird 2nd National
women cricket national championship, LUMS inter university women’s league organized by
SLUMS and visited cricket grounds like Model Town Ground, UBL sports complex to find the
playing conditions of female cricketers. For statistics and international matches data, Desktop
research was also performed.

FINDINGS + ANALYSIS
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From prominent of the Women Cricket team of Pakistan, when interviewed about the scope of
cricket specifically for women, we came to the following conclusions.

> Family Support

Ayesha Zafar, a national level player, who has been playing cricket since childhood, working
with PCB since 2009 and representing Pakistan in international tournaments for 3 years
considers profound support of her family as a crucial element of her sports journey. Her game
initiated because of her father who taught her the game and inculcated this interest. Initially,
she had no idea about the team or the competitive aspect of cricket and she used to just play
with her father and her brother’s friends. She used to play in streets and on rooftops. Her family
accepted her decision to pursue cricket as her career; she has never faced permission restriction
by her parents for travelling for matches. Additionally, her diet is particularly taken care of by
her family along with provision of the best training opportunities (such as gyms) in Karachi.
Similar was the case with Fatima and Warda.

Upon interviewing we found out the females in Pakistan who currently want to pursue cricket
as a career belong from lower middle class families. Because cricket provides them means of
earning and thus their families are happy with them. Those cricketers who have a side
occupation or mainly wants to pursue academic education have high opportunity cost of
playing cricket as compared to these raw girls who don’t have other lucrative educational
opportunities.

>Organizational Support

Upon our investigations around Universities we found out that Kinnaird College Female
cricket team tops the score-charts and has the highest number of winning matches in university
level competitions. This was because KC is the only college which provides 100% scholarship
on sports. Whereas LUMS doesn’t provide that. This caters to the segment of lower household
girls. Another reason why KC is the flowering bed of many national level cricketers is because
the fact that it's’ all females. The Ground is exclusive, the girls have freedom to play anytime
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without any fear of who is watching. Plus all the management's’ attention is given to them. In
Universities where both boys and girls cricket teams exist, there are seen disparities and biased
behavior and opportunities of the management and coaches. For example the same coach at
LUMS trains both the teams, however female team complains that male coach allocates more
time to men’s team and their matches were completely neglected. When we went to interview
them, there was a match happening between KC and LUMS. But astonishingly girls told us that
he has not even shown once for them. Similarly they were neglected in the orientation and
practices by the Sports Team at LUMS. However at KC, we found satisfactory remarks over
the coach.

Moreover there are many renowned universities where Female Cricket teams don’t exist like
IBA and UOL, but still have national players from these universities because of their private
coaching and practice.

Upon discussing Mr. Shoaib Naveed, we found out that PCB regional and domestic are in
dearth of quality cricketers both females and males, but unfortunately very few candidates
matched the criteria. This makes us question, the role of the alma mater to harness the skills of
the players at local levels.

(Please confirm this with relevant authority) In US there is the federal fund under Title IX law
for the universities and colleges for such activities. PCB unfortunately or any other government
body doesn’t provide any sports fund to universities and colleges, let alone the separate debate
for equal distribution of the funds among both genders.

In Pakistan, the physiotherapist is always women but the females’ coaches are barely seen.
Perhaps the one reason could be because Pakistan Women Cricket Team played its first match
recently in 1997 while Men’s Cricket team played its first match against India in 1952! Hence,
the department’s sponsors prefer hiring expert males over inexperienced less exposed females.

Pakistan doesn’t have any female umpire or commentator.

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> PCB Differentials

Ayesha Zafar clearly accentuated the fact of pay gap by PCB between male cricket plays and
female cricket players. In terms of monetary value, the players are paid in 1 : 10 (female : male)
that depicts the magnification of discrimination by the factor of 10.

There are 32 domestic cricket teams and departments for Male cricketers while there are only
3-4 departments for female cricketers (Departments/Teams are sponsored by organizations like
HBL, UBL, Zarai Taraqiati Bank). An average male domestic cricketer on national level plays
matches 25-30 matches per year. While girls could barely play 10-14 national/domestic
regionals.

Also in Lahore there is no women’s exclusive cricket ground for females. Even Gaddafi
Stadium is available to practice for when there are National Camps organized for females. The
only good conditioned ground is offered by Kinnaird College. It was even astonishing to find
out that the female cricket team at LUMS plays in the side raw garden grass and barely uses the
main cricket ground.

> Health Issues:

After being asked about the biological issues that are perceived as serious problems for
women during their trainings then Ayesha affirmed on the fact that good diet plays a crucial
role and our whole biological system rests in our hands, unless tough luck creeps in. Staying
and taking care of your meals will make sure you are always fit for the game. Not to mention
good and proper sleep as well matters just as much.

Irum Javed pointed out that female biological sex although never made issue during practice
but, the Pakistani genetics made hindrance. Because south Asian and central Asian nation’s
women are not much tall heighted and sturdy stature as compared to women from Australia and
New Zealand, they face tough time making hit rate comparative to International Standards. As
the highest batting speed recorded by female cricketers internationally is 76/77 miles per hour.
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However, PCB trains the national female cricketers simultaneously with national male
cricketers and make girls compete with boys, so that our female team could compete with the
international teams. This means that the trainings of both genders are executed together for
nationals, with equal amount of training time and opportunities spent.

The maximum age a female cricketer plays is 35 years. While the maximum age for
retirement in Males is 45 years.

> Society issues

No public recognition in public places such as malls, fame confined to social media
platforms’ followers, no appreciation, no media coverage, and no promotion of upcoming
matches or national level tournaments. since cricket is an outdoor sport so hooting in open
grounds, open grounds so ease of entry- low mentality audience- catcalls and comments
irreverently during the game and thus, demoralize them and affects their mental health.

Upon asking if they ever get issues in the prospective marriage proposals, the girls only
showed concerns over the tone of the skin color which get tanned in playing open in the
sunlight. Unfortunately cricket demands girls to be raw and not put over the makeup, this
makes them seem like “masculine” and their physique plus style is par below the social
standards of femininity which is fragile and prime prom. The respondents also linked this to be
the factor behind why can’t get any soap or detergent advertisement starring than their well-
known male counterparts.

These conclusions show how, even though our famous players have all the support through
their families, there is less focus and importance towards women as compared to men. There is
much less awareness about the game all over the country which suggests that there is very little
publicity and marketing done for women as compared to men. The tournament happening in
Kinnaird College had drastically low audience because more than half of the population was
totally unaware of the event. The reason for low publicity is rooted through low financial
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assistance given to women wing as compared to men. This ultimately results in their massive
pay differentials, as aforementioned.

DISCUSSION
Upon discussion with all the stakeholders we found out that there is a huge scope for the
sports development in Pakistan and it’s not a one day aim to achieve. Developing sports like
cricket can only be achieved by the long term planning. Regardless of gender, Pakistan is
lagging behind sports and cricket performance internationally and the core reason behind this is
the lack of sportsmanship spirit in Pakistan’s cultural values. It would be interesting to find out
how much low-key interested are students in the playing sports then watching them. With
digitization and the mindset that “All play makes Jack a dull boy” there is very little support
from families to encourage their kids especially girls to play cricket or any other game instead
of studies. Perhaps that's the reason why we have a double percentage of girls performing better
in matriculation results than boys. The girls who we surveyed as the national players if
belonged from the lower income strata had families who supported them playing outside with
their brothers or in case of upper-income strata, the facilities were provided from schools.

In order for society to welcome and encourage sports (especially girls) we believe its high-
time to understand the spirit of sportsmanship (Sportship for equalitists in linguistics), the
values which playing games like cricket teaches, are to be understood. For example, the reason
why males are considered to be street smart and are more comfortable in handling leadership
position or failure with humility are because of their sportsmanship. Girls who have not played
games in childhood, lag behind a very crucial part of their character building and affect the
manner how they socialize or lead teams later in future. Cricket being a game played by a team
of 11 surely is the game of mind. Thus there should sports culture on the grassroots level, for
our national to thrive at the values of cricket.

In Pakistan, the cricket could also boom if we have more decentralized control of PCB over
the regions. The idea of grassroots mobilization could only be handled properly if the local
regional associations have more decision making mechanism. For example, PSL should have
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separate board of governance. To ensure that regions should have the self-sustaining capacity
and grounds.

Personality development of the players is the crucial element linked to the performance of any
cricketer whether female or male. As most players come from lower underprivileged
background, they hold a lot of social pressure to sustain their families’ expectations. There
should be school based scholarships for the sports. Also, PCB academy should groom the
cricketers to how to speak English fluently and how to handle media. They should be able to
know how many shots at what batting rate are needed at a particular over. Many of our
National players don’t know the math behind the marginal rates of batting.

We understood, that the Cricket boards are not the money piping mechanism as most of the
resources are pumped from external sponsors in the form of departments. However there are
very sponsors for PCB female cricketers. This linkage is 2 way. If sponsors put in money,
cricket becomes attractive to audience viewership. If audience viewership is high, sponsors
automatically pool in money. So is there any solution for this circular mystery. Perhaps the
answer again lies in the grass-root mobilization, the current projects like Test Tournaments, or
Domestic U-19 or PSL are the upper scale programs but with lower viewership locally. Even if
the scale of the project/sponsorship be in one region but only could we increase the attraction,
the goal could be achieved. A good example could be the Sri Lanka's Nestle Milo Cricket
Academy in association with Sri Lankan Ministry of Sports.
This training camp was participated by 54 schools where special coaching was provided to
kids ( not only the budding young talent, but also the avid viewers of the cricket). Such
programs, not only made brand visibility but also instilled sports culture in line with their brand
image and vision. If we look at India, we found great examples of how enriched their literature,
movies and curriculum development supporting National favorite games Pakistan unfortunately
has lower sponsorship capitalization on the mass audience.

Also, Pakistan lacks badly the social media campaigning and hype creation for the local
sports. When we visited KC and LUMS tournaments we realized how badly these events are
 18

marketed inside these universities or just in Lahore. National teams were coming and playing
brilliantly but there viewership was zero.

As it was said by PCB chairman in his interview “There are many who play cricket in
Pakistan, but we have to look for a cricketer who knows the business of Cricket”. Familiarizing
the business model of how cricket works locally and internationally, for cricketers and sponsors
to capitalise would help a lot.

LIMITATIONS
One fear which was pointed out by the PCB management was the fact that no matter how
strong the team selection criteria for Pakistan’s national team be, or how much trained the
players are, Pakistan due to out of control factors has been able to perform less number of
matches internationally because of ICC financing structure dominated by sponsorships, revenue
from television copyright screening form three particular member countries like India, England
and Australia. Hence ICC needs to progress like FIFA, with zero political interference. One
prospect could be that India’s dominance could break if, there is only 1% of US sports budget
expenditure on the cricket. The non-involvement of US is the reason behind dominance of
India in International cricket.

In case of bilateral matches, ICC doesn’t have control over the number of matches played.
The bilateral international matches like test series, One Day International or T20 are
autonomously owned by the member countries. Due to large sum of money from Indian or
England’s Television screenings, these dominating countries play cricket among themselves.
Matches inside Pakistan are also forbiddingly out of question because of security threats to
international cricketers. Hence the number of test matches and ODI’s played internationally by
Pakistan are lower as compared to other countries. Thus these exogenous factors
internationally, make lesser opportunities for Pakistan to thrive for in international cricket, this
ultimately affect cricket locally especially on the marginalized sections like women.
 19

Also the limitations bounded to our research were that this study was only conducted in
Lahore. Is Lahore the true and fair representation of other regions and districts of Pakistan?
This research doesn’t incorporate differences in the conditions of female cricket among various
cities or localities. Moreover, there was hardly no academic research done on the field of
sports in Pakistan, let alone the cross-sectional dissecting of data on the basis of gender or other
variables like income, demographics etc.. Hence the nature of our data collection was the prime
qualitative interviews and discussions from different stakeholders. The only secondary data
source was the news reports, however the local events reporting was also not streamlined in the
internet. The statistics like salary figures provided were the rough estimates but not the exact
figures.

FUTURE IMPLICATIONS
After all the overly sensitive approach towards the many problems that trouble women, we
have seen feminism grow and expand enough to make for itself, a sound place in the face of the
public. Thereafter, it is evident and clearly understandable how the lack of popularity in
women’s cricket is due to the gender discrimination and bias.
Simply put, game of our women is just not pleasing for the eyes here who are used to the
men’s game so much so that they will give up and take holidays just so they don’t miss a single
ball.
Talking about the women side, the lack of marketing and publicity is so massive that after
visiting Kinnaird College, we were surprised to see such a low turnout of people even though it
was an important step ahead of the most recent tournament and girls from all across Pakistan
came to take part and represent women. Going there for our research, even we were not known
about the matches unless told in person. This ultimately suggests lack of funds and more
importantly the platform to raise funds and that for marketing. Had there been enough
publicity, people would know that it’s happening and show up to support the girls.
PCB being the backbone of women’s cricket association, should really look for ways to
bridge this gap between marketing Men’s tournament and those of Women.
Furthermore, there should be more academies and all the colleges and universities should
know about the facilities. They should be accommodated beyond just the provision of the
ground. PCB is said to have arranged annual tours and is planning to introduce 2 more
 20

international annual tours but that can only be worthwhile if people know about it and if the
women have support from their own country’s residents, primarily. The number of academies
can be believed to be directly related to the overall interest for the game. With more academies,
comes the need for more coaches and will allow for more people to invest their time.
Thirdly, the timings of the matches should be very carefully planned out and should not clash
with the big men’s games so in order to avoid obvious insult and discrimination for women.
This will also reduce the demotivation that our women team has to face whenever the matches
are lined up simultaneously. Improving the focus scale, this will not only boost the confidence
of the women’s team but will also allow the men’s team to support the country’s
representatives.
How can one not talk about the pay gap between genders when it comes to sports, or even just
cricket alone. After talking to Ayesha Zafar, we came to know how the scale differentiates on a
1:10 scale which is rather shameful to whoever is dealing with it. We don’t even have to
mention the respective number of the ratio here.
Last but not least, Pakistan or perhaps, PCB should also focus on recognizing the team as a
whole. Irrespective of the deficiencies, PCB can boost women’s confidence by giving them
enough recognition so that they know about their purpose crystal clear.
 21

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