Bismah Maroof believes Pakistan can topple the giants of the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup after an emphatic win over West Indies.
Pakistan have never made it out of the preliminary stages of the tournament but began their Group B campaign with a comprehensive eight-wicket victory over the 2016 winners in Canberra.
Skipper Bismah, who led a consummate chase with an unbeaten 38, praised her bowlers and feels the result will infuse her side with hope they can progress for the first time.
“We needed this win to move ahead and it has given us some momentum and belief,” said the Pakistan captain. “We’ve struggled at times in run chases but we kept our focus, kept calm and stayed in the middle. We knew if we got a partnership, we had to go on and our openers played very well. We want to play aggressive cricket and get the bad balls to the boundary and the openers showed good intent.”
“The belief is there, but we will take it game by game. We’ll have to play at 120 per cent to beat teams like England. The way this tournament has gone, it’s quite wide open and any team can beat the other. We’re looking forward to the next game and we’ll be putting in maximum effort.”
Pakistan were startlingly untroubled in their run-chase, with Javeria Khan judicious in the Powerplay and helping guide youngster Muneeba Ali to their country’s best Women’s T20 World Cup opening partnership.
Bismah, while slow to get started, swept adroitly and alongside Nida Dar, turned the screw on a poor West Indies performance with the ball and in the field. The two teams played out a tight T20I series in February 2019 with West Indies’ 2-1 win clinched by a Super Over, but the difference between the sides was cavernous in the Australian capital.
All-rounder Chinelle Henry admitted it was a desperate day for Windies from the very first ball, when opener Hayley Matthews was dismissed lbw by Diana Baig, and her side didn’t show up in the field.
“Everything went wrong from the first ball of the game,” said Henry. “As a unit, we stuck together and got to a pretty decent total. As a bowling unit, we just didn’t execute as we would want to. Everyone was disappointed with our fielding performance. We can do much better - we just didn’t turn up. We have to work out why that happened. We have two games to go and we know as individuals they are must-win games. We’re going to go back to the drawing board.”