Fatima Sana to captain Pakistan in emerging women's T20 Asia Cup.

PESHAWAR -- Fatima Sana will lead Pakistan in the upcoming ACC Emerging Women's T20 Asia Cup that will be played in Hong Kong next month.

The national women's selection committee has announced a 14-player squad, which includes four players who featured in the inaugural ICC U19 Women's T20 World Cup earlier in the year, for the eight-team tournament that will be played from June 12-21, 2023, said a PCB release issued here Wednesday.

The squad has been put together after observing performances in the T20 phase of the Pakistan Cup Women's Cricket Tournament and emerging camp in Multan in March. Fatima has played 31 One-Day Internationals and 24 T20 Internationals and the decision to name her captain for the tournament has been made after she captained Strikers, based on probables for this squad, to wins in all three matches in the above-mentioned tournament and led Blasters' successful T20 Championship campaign in Lahore in December.

Squad: Fatima Sana (c), Anoosha Nasir, Eyman Fatima, Gull Feroza, Gulrukh, Lubna Behram, Najiha Alvi (wk), Natalia Parvaiz, Sadaf Shamas, Shawaal Zulfiqar, Syeda Aroob Shah, Tuba Hassan, Umm-e-Hani and Yusra Amir. Reserves: Amber Kainat, Dua Majid, Fatima Khan and Rameen Shamim

Pakistan are slotted in Group A with Hong Kong, India A and Thailand A. Pakistan will open their campaign on June 13 with the match against Thailand A, after which they play Hong Kong and India A on June 15 and 17, respectively. Top two teams from each group will qualify for the semi-finals which will be played on June 19. The final of the tournament will be held on 21 June.

Chief selector Saleem Jaffar congratulated all players who have been selected for the emerging Asia Cup and expressed the hope that they would perform to their full potential. 'We have some outstanding talent coming up and it was a tough call to select 14 players. I want to tell those cricketers who have not been selected for this tournament to keep their heads high and keep working hard and they...