Team Analysis for the Women's T20I World Cup 2023: Pakistan

(Source: Twitter)

The Women's T20 World Cup is upon us. As the mega event approaches, we will take a look at the teams that will be participating in the tournament. 

The tournament will kickstart with South Africa facing West Indies in the first match. However, we will talk about the arch-rivals of India, Pakistan. The two teams will begin their campaign by playing against each other and will look to get off to a winning start. 

History

Pakistan have been a part of the tournament since 2009 and have played all the editions till now. But the best they have managed to do is to get eliminated from the first round of the tournament. The winning percentage of Pakistan in the history of the tournament has been 25.92%. 

(Source: OneCricket)

Now moving ahead first let us look at the Pakistan team for the tournament.

Pakistan Squad for Women's T20I World Cup 2023

Bismah Maroof (c), Muneeba Ali, Sidra Ameen, Aiman Anwer, Nida Dar, Tuba Hassan, Sadia Iqbal, Javeria Khan, Ayesha Naseem, Sidra Nawaz (wk), Aliya Riaz, Fatima Sana, Nashra Sandhu, Sadaf Shamas, and Omaima Sohail.

If we look at the type of players we will get:

(Source: OneCricket)

Now, that we have got an idea about the team composition of the Pakistan women's team, let us take a deeper analytical dive into it. 

Strengths of the Pakistan team

1. Good Assimilation of All-rounders: The Pakistan team has a good amalgamation of all-rounders in  Bismah Maroof, Nida Dar, Javeria Khan, Aliya Riaz and Omaima Sohail. If not all, a few of them can impact the game with both the bat and the ball. The presence of such a good unit of all-rounders will help the team in their journey of the mega event. 
2. Strong bowling unit: The Pakistan bowling unit looks like a good mixture of youth and experience. They have the experience of Nida Dar in the bowling line-up along with the youthful and promising presence of Sadi Iqbal. To make it to the next round of the tournament for the first time in their history, Pakistan will be depending largely on their bowling attack. 

Weaknesses of the Pakistan team

1. Inconsistency in batting: The batting order of Pakistan has some good names in Bismah Maroof, Muneeba Ali and Sidra Ameen. But the team often fails to repeat they're good batting performances. It has been a feature of the team where they put in a good batting performance in one match but fail miserably in the next. So, The team will have to improve on this aspect to make it in this tournament. 
2. Absence of Diana Baig: The Pakistan team have had to exclude Diana Baig from their World Cup squad because of injury. In such a big tournament like the World Cup, the team will surely miss the experience of Baig. They will have to cope with the absence in some other capacity. 

Opportunity for the Pakistan team

1. The tiring pitches of South Africa: The fact that the pitches in South Africa are slowing down will help the Pakistan team in more than one way. They have a good aggregation of spinners and are also good players of slow bowling. So, there is every chance that they might surprise a few teams in the tournament. 

Threat for the Pakistan team

1. Batting Collapses: The team has a few world-class batters like- Muneeba Ali and Bismah Mahrood,  but often they have faced unwanted middle-order collapses. It has been a general template of the team in important matches, that even after getting promising starts, they have let it off because of a feeble performance of the middle-order. Hence, this will be an area that the Pakistan team will have to work on. 

Source: OneCricket

Prediction: Looking at the overall team combination and the group that they are sorted in, I would say that if Pakistan makes it to the second round it will be quite a big surprise. 

Also Read: ICC Women's T20 World Cup: All you need to know