Pakistan displays women's power in Asian cricket

DINESH WEERAWANSA reporting from China

"Why didn't Sri Lanka field its women's team for the Asian Games? They could have easily won the gold medal," was a frequent question most Sri Lankans here, especially media personalities and team officials had to come across on a numerous occasions.

Sri Lanka is better known in the international sports arena for its champion cricketers and athletes. Hence, at a time when cricket is included in the Asian Games proper for the first time in its 59-year-old history, many Chinese, and those across Asia, would have thought that teams in the subcontinent, especially Sri Lanka, would make the best out of it.

China has made big plans to sail through as a cricketing nation. When China took to serious rugby in mid 90s, hardly anybody took notice of them and Sri Lanka thrashed them in convincing margins in Rugby Union Tests.

But not anymore! The Chinese have mastered rugby in no time and today, they are in a position to give a good run to almost all the rugby-playing nations in Asia. Similarly, China is looking for greener pastures in cricket too.

With the technical advise from New Zealand, China has prepared a fantastic cricket stadium to host the Asian Games matches.

Sri Lanka is honoured to have its first Test captain Bandula Warnapura as the Tournament Director of the Asian Games cricket competition.

Unfortunately, Sri Lanka did not field its women's team for the 16th Asian Games which has both the men's and women's competitions in Twenty20 cricket. Perhaps, Sri Lanka would have thought it's more important to honour the home series against England. So did India for reasons better known to them.

Nevertheless, Sri Lanka will be competing in the men's tournament. The Lankan team, led by Jehan Mubarak has a good chance of striking the gold.

At a time Sri Lanka is struggling to strike gold, one hopes Mubarak's men would give that rare honour to Sri Lanka.

But it was Pakistan women who made the best use of the ideal conditions in the absence of Sri Lanka and India. All what they had to do was to beat Bangladesh and they did that in grand fashion in the final to win the gold medal.

Pakistan's women's team is now "on top of the world" after winning the first-ever Asian Games women's cricket gold. More importantly, the victory also handed Pakistan its first gold of the 45-nation Games. Sri Lanka would have achieved this feat and its first gold medal of the Guangzhou 2010 Games had their women's team been here.

"It is a great achievement by the women's cricket team of Pakistan. We made history," captain Sana Mir, said recalling the sweet memories of her team's smashing yen-wicket win over Bangladesh in the final. "Women in Pakistan are very strong and they are encouraged to be involved in sports.

That's the reason why the team could make it this far," she said.

Pakistan Olympic chief was a happy man after their women's cricket team saved their country from a total humiliation without a single gold medal.

"I couldn't be more proud of the girls," said Syed Arif Hasan, President of the Pakistan Olympic Association, after presenting the gold medals to the victorious team. "Everyone is so excited about it back home," he said.

Another country which is making its mark in cricket, even in a smaller way, is Japan. They won the bronze medal of the women's tournament, beating China by seven wickets in the play-off for the third place.

"Cricket is only a very small sport in Japan and I really hope by winning this medal we can gain greater recognition. It means so much for us," Japan's women's cricket captain Ema Kuribayashi said. "China was geared up to win on home soil so we knew it would not be an easy match. But we made it at last," she added.

China's women's captain, Wang Meng said they wasted the home advantage and the chance they had to win on home soil.

"It was a pity that we didn't win, but we absolutely tried our best," she said. Meng added that she treasured the experience of playing "real cricket" with passion in the tournament.

After putting up a brave performance, the Chinese players bowed to thank the support of the audience.

For a team that had only trained for three years, China achieved its goal at the tournament - to make it to the top four.

Bangladesh Coach Rai Choudhury believes China can become a force in the game in the not-too-distant future. "I think it is a team with great potential because it is progressive and never gives up," said Choudhury.

China's cricket manager Liu Rongyao said what the host nation desperately needs is to let more young people learn and play the sport, which is still unknown to most.

GUANGZHOU, Monday.