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Nawaz derails New Zealand after Conway hundred and Williamson fifty
Pakistan left-arm spinner triggers a collapse of 6 for 37 in Karachi
Innings: New Zealand 261 (Conway 101, Williamson 85, Nawaz 4-38, Naseem 3-58) vs Pakistan
Devon Conway and Kane Williamson threatened to take New Zealand past 300 with an imposing 181-run second-wicket partnership, but Mohammad Nawaz countered them with 4 for 38 to limit the visitors to 261 in Karachi.
Conway had just reverse-swept legspinner Usama Mir for a triptych of fours in the 29th over, notching up his second ODI century off just 89 balls. However, in the next over, Naseem Shah found just enough seam movement with the old ball to castle Conway. That dismissal triggered an irreparable collapse of 6 for 37, with Nawaz alone claiming four of those wickets.
Nawaz had an opportunity to cut Conway's innings short at 29 in the last over of the powerplay, but he dropped a tough return catch. After tying down Conway and Williamson with lack of turn in his first six overs, which cost Pakistan only 29 runs, Nawaz found sharp turn to snag Daryl Mitchell, Tom Latham, Williamson, and Glenn Phillips in his last four overs.
A delightful cocktail of drift, dip and turn breached the defences of Williamson in the 35th over. Skid and zip off a fairly slow pitch undid Latham, who is among the best players of spin in New Zealand's line-up. New Zealand could muster only 60 in the last 15 overs, and though they have beefed up their spin attack by bringing in Ish Sodhi, it was advantage Pakistan at the innings break.
Pakistan had also started well, with Naseem striking in his first over once again. After having sent Conway packing for a golden duck in the first ODI, the fast bowler had Finn Allen slashing a catch to Nawaz at short cover for 1 in the second. During those early exchanges, Conway struggled for timing and often lost his shape when he tried to over-hit the ball. Williamson, meanwhile, was in control from the get-to.
The New Zealand captain started his innings with a trademark dab to deep third and then displayed greater intent in the powerplay. He scythed Naseem over backward point and shovelled Mohammad Wasim in the air over midwicket for fours. Williamson was the first to notch up his half-century off 52 balls, with Conway joining him there in the same over.
Williamson was then reprieved twice in a space of four balls in the 22nd over. When Wasim first dug one into the pitch, he spliced a pull to midwicket, where Haris Sohail dropped an overhead coach. Three balls later, Mohammad Rizwan, the wicketkeeper, spurned a chance after Wasim brushed Williamson's glove.
Conway, though, was at his fluent best during this period, taking on Pakistan's spinners with his variety of sweeps, including the reverse. After reaching his first fifty off 57 balls, he needed just 32 balls for triple-figures. When Babar Azam tried to coax a few quiet overs from part-time spinner Agha Salman, Conway took him for 12 off eight balls and helped put him out of the attack. Conway even charged at Wasim, audaciously pumping him over point for six. Just when he looked good for more, Naseem conjured up a wicket and changed the game.
Nawaz then took over and wrecked New Zealand's middle order. Mitchell Santner fought gamely at the death, scoring 37 off 40 balls, before he was run out off the penultimate ball of the innings. Santner will have a bigger job with the ball if New Zealand are to keep the series alive.
PCB's talks with Mickey Arthur to coach Pakistan fall through
The Pakistan board is still searching for a coach to take over from Saqlain Mushtaq
Mickey Arthur will not be returning to Pakistan cricket, after talks with the PCB failed to find a way to make any arrangement work. The PCB had been in discussions with Arthur for a new stint as head coach over the last few weeks. But the PCB announced on Tuesday that Arthur's long-term contract with Derbyshire meant he couldn't take the head coach role right away. Both sides had conversations over a looser, consultancy role but the PCB said that proved "difficult to materialise for various reasons on both sides."
The PCB said they would continue their search for a coach to replace the incumbent Saqlain Mushtaq, whose contract runs out at the end of February. Saqlain has been coach of the side since September 2021 and has seen Pakistan reach the semi-finals and then final of two successive T20 World Cups. But a poor home season, especially in Tests, has increased scrutiny on his impact. With a new board regime in charge under Najam Sethi and keen to stamp their authority on the team, Saqlain's time is effectively up.
An Arthur return would've been a popular one, at least within the team where a number of current players blossomed during his first stint from 2016 to 2019. It was Arthur's faith in and work with current captain Babar Azam that proved instrumental in his subsequent rise. A number of other key players, including Fakhar Zaman, Shadab Khan, Sarfaraz Ahmed all flourished during Arthur's tenure. Under his charge Pakistan won the 2017 Champions Trophy and also reached the No. 1 position on ICC's T20I rankings; in the first Test series he took charge in, Pakistan became the top-ranked Test side as well (though much of the work to that rise had occurred before he took over).
But he was replaced by Misbah-ul-Haq, who had been captain under Arthur's coaching, after Pakistan's fifth-place finish at the 2019 ODI World Cup. They narrowly failed to make the semi-finals, despite a stirring turnaround after a heavy early loss.
On December 27, ESPNcricinfo reported that Sethi, in effect the head of the current administration was in talks with Arthur over returning to his previous job. Arthur was previously coach during Sethi's previous stint. Both sides, it is believed, tried hard to find a way through especially with a consultancy role, with a schedule drawn out as to how such a role might work around Arthur's four-year deal with Derbyshire.
Women's cricket in Afghanistan: Lack of progress 'a concern' for ICC
"It's something our board will consider at its next meeting in March," says CEO Geoff Allardice, as Afghanistan remain only Full Member without a women's team
Afghanistan's continuing lack of commitment to women's cricket has finally become a "concern" for the ICC, as the global body prepares to stage its first Under-19 Women's T20 World Cup later this week. Afghanistan are the only Full Member to not be represented at the event in South Africa, in which 16 teams are participating. Well over a year after the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan, women's cricket has not made any headway at all in the country and signs are that it won't in the near future, compelling the ICC to take up the matter at its next board meeting in March.
The global governing body had formed a working group to review cricket in Afghanistan following the Taliban's takeover of the country in 2021. The group, chaired by the ICC deputy chair Imran Khwaja, met with Afghanistan government and cricket officials in November last year, including the Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen. The government reportedly reiterated its commitment to comply with the ICC constitution, including agreeing in principle to support the development of women's cricket.
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Away in Canada, Roya Samim keeps a candle lit for women's cricket in Afghanistan
But in reality nothing has been done to encourage women to pick up the game, even when they made a formal effort to expand their domestic structure and take cricket to new regions. There are six tournaments across all formats for men's cricket, from age group to senior level. But as yet, there has been no investment in women's cricket, and Afghanistan is the only cricketing nation to have Full Member status without satisfying one of its basic requirements: a fully operational women's team.
And prospects have become bleaker recently, after the Taliban regime ordered an indefinite ban on university education for girls, which, according to the ICC CEO Geoff Allardice, is concerning.
"Obviously, the recent developments [banning higher education for girls] in Afghanistan are concerning," Allardice said during a virtual press conference. "Our board has been monitoring progress since the change of regime. It is a concern that progress is not being made in Afghanistan and it's something our board will consider at its next meeting in March. As far as we are aware, there isn't activity at the moment."
Since the Taliban took over, many women have fled - or sought to leave - the country. A number of women were working in the Afghanistan Cricket Board (ACB) headquarters in Kabul, but are no longer coming into the office. Several have reportedly gone overseas.
"Women's cricket in Afghanistan has always been a burning issue and I don't see there is a solution right now," Asad Ullah, until recently a director with the ACB, told ESPNcricinfo. "There will be a cultural challenge and we hardly have a pool of players in the country. In fact, there has never been a women's team even before the Taliban came into power. There were a handful of girls playing cricket within their home as a recreational activity. It never made it onto the field because there was no real intent or platform.
"There hasn't been any interest at all. Definitely they can play, if they want to, but in Afghanistan, it was not an option for girls. There is a big number of girls who left the country thinking that they won't have the freedom to play sports. But are they playing sports in Australia or elsewhere? I don't think so. They left for a better future which is their right but cricket among girls in Afghanistan hasn't been popular anyway and it hasn't been encouraged either.
"It is largely because of the lack of acceptance about women going out. ICC should understand the dynamics in the country and it's not something they can enforce and government can implement at once. It takes time. Every country operates within their own law. There are certain things that aren't open as in western society."
ESPNcricinfo has written to the ACB seeking its official stance on women's cricket but has not yet received a response.
Away in Canada, Roya Samim keeps a candle lit for women's cricket in Afghanistan
Once, there was a future. Now, there is nothing. But still, "cricket can be a life for me", she hopes
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But it was not about the result at all.
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"Anyone who played that game showed that they stand with us," 28-year-old Samim told ESPNcricinfo from her home in Canada. "It's like a candle-light protest, but instead of lighting a candle, it's playing cricket. And it reminded people that we are here. We exist. I cannot play on the national ground but I played virtually, and when I see that, I am just proud of myself that 'Yes, I was in the Afghanistan team'."
Samim became interested, and involved, in cricket as an adult, playing with her siblings despite the raised eyebrows of those in their community, who said "cricket is not for you [girls/women]". Mostly, they played indoors in their home in Afghanistan, but found like-minded enthusiasts, and in 2019, began campaigning for a professional women's cricket set-up. At the time, Samim was working as a mathematics teacher, but "hoped that cricket could become my career".
By November 2020, the Afghanistan Cricket Board (ACB) was convinced enough to roll out contracts for 25 women, with the plan that they would slowly progress to playing competitive fixtures.
Though the board indicated it would take time to get a women's team on the park, given the cultural and traditional norms in Afghanistan, Samim saw attitudes shifting around her.
"There were people that accepted us, appreciated us, and said we can do it," she said. "There were those who allowed their girls to go to the school, to go to cricket, and to go to other sports. It was becoming acceptable."
Spurred on by the pockets of support they got, the group of Afghan women trained as hard as they could. "We had professional coaches - the trainers for the international men's team, they trained us too," Samim recalled. "The ACB provided us with camps and three or four days of training in a week. We had two teams and we played against each other. We made ourselves professional.
"We spent seven or eight hours a day on cricket. First, we'd go to the ACB headquarters, then we'd go to the [Victory Cricket] academy, then we'd go to the fitness clubs. We wanted to be professional and we developed a lot."
In that time, there was some talk of organising matches against Oman or Bangladesh but that never came to fruition. In fact, nothing did. "Not even six months of our contract was complete when the Taliban came and everything was destroyed."
The Taliban's political takeover in Afghanistan began in May 2021, and escalated in August. In the space of a week, they claimed territory from Kunduz to Kabul and it was during that period that Samim decided she had to reconsider her options.
"At the time, the Taliban had more than two provinces and the big city of Herat. We were just afraid. I went to my cricket manager and said, 'If you know that cricket can go ahead and there will be peace, I will not leave', to which she replied, 'No, I cannot guarantee that, and the situation is not good for girls, so you should leave'. That's when we left Kabul," Samim said. "Three days afterwards, the Taliban took [over] Afghanistan. We were in a hotel and my team-mates called me and they cried.
"Everything - any dream, any wishes, any hope that me and my team-mates had - was gone. It was such a bad situation. When I remember now, I just want to cry."
While many of Samim's team-mates remained in Afghanistan, she made it to Canada with "only two pieces of clothing". Her brother and two sisters joined her, but she had another brother in a different country. She has had to adjust to many things, not least the "completely different weather", and has just been through a winter with "lots of ice and lots of snow" as well as the loss of both her cricketing and professional career.
"Women's education is really important for any country. If you want to change the future, you have to have women's education"
Samim on how difficult it has been for women in Afghanistan
"It's really hard to explain how my life is. In Afghanistan, I had a good career and I had other things. I had friends, and my team," she said. "When people saw me, they were proud of me. Here, I had to start from zero. But I started because I feel that I am so strong, I can handle anything. I have some friends, I started playing cricket, I started working. I've got many friends. Everything is going normal. Well, I want to pretend it's normal."
Samim has stopped teaching and is now a settlement worker who aims to help other refugees. She laments the loss of learning opportunities for women in Afghanistan but hopes to keep the conversation alive by speaking about it.
"When I heard that the Taliban were not going to allow girls to go to school and I wasn't in Afghanistan to stand against it, I just cried," she said. "I can't do anything. It's so hard, because education - especially women's education - is really important for any country. If you want to change the future, you have to have women's education. It is really hard to see that we have completely lost our country. It's really hard but we can't do anything. I just raise my voice like this."
Similarly, she is also keeping her cricket ambitions burning and has found a place for it: Fredericton Cricket Club in New Brunswick. She hopes it will open doors for her to play elsewhere - including franchise leagues - and appeals to anyone who has an opportunity to provide it.
"Any small chances that are given to us as cricket players, we will be happy," she said. "Even a trial, if people want to give it to us, we are ready. I play cricket because I know that it's my future. Sometime in the future maybe I will get into a national team. I am really working for this. I am really training hard. I have lost everything, so cricket can be a life for me."
Samim aims to play for another five to seven years before turning her attention to coaching. With so much invested in cricket, she does not want to see Afghanistan shunned from the world stage. She supports the men's team in continuing to play rather than face any sanctions, and believes it brings joy to Afghans, wherever they might be.
"I would like the men to continue to play. I don't want the situation to have an effect on them. They are the only team that can bring some happiness in my country. It's only cricket, not other sports [do that]. It's good that they continue."
And she hopes one day she will be able to join them in real life in a match for Afghanistan.
"To go home now is impossible because the Taliban don't accept me and I don't accept them. But if anything changes - for example, maybe they will allow girls to play cricket - [and] if there are matches, I should be there. It's my country."
0.000 SRY