Hong Kong Women return home from Pakistan

The Hong Kong and Pakistan Women's teams enjoy a moment together at the end of the final match at Gadaffi Stadium in Lahore. © HKCA

Hong Kong's Women's cricket team returned from Lahore on Saturday following their first international ODI series against Pakistan.

Pakistan won the final match on 21st September 2006 to win the series 3-0 and go through to the ICC Women's World Cup Qualifying Tournament next year.

Two matches were played at Gaddafi Stadium - the last in front of 10,000 spectators - and one match at the Bagh-e-Jinnah Gymkhana ground.

"Our players learned a great deal from every match," said Hong Kong captain Neisha Pratt, "and in the final match there was a huge improvement in our bowling, especially with the introduction of Chan Sau Ha to the attack."

Chan Sau Ha, at 12 years old is the youngest player ever to represent Hong Kong at cricket in a full international, made her debut in the 3rd match vs Pakistan at Gaddafi Stadium and finished the match with very creditable figures of 1 wicket for 52 runs off 10 overs.

Chan Sau Ha was only 12 when she made her debut for Hong Kong Women © HKCA

Ishitaa Gidwani, 14, also made her debut in the same match and returned figures of 1 wicket for 52 runs from 9 overs.

"It was wonderful to see two very young and inexperienced girls competing so well," continued Ms Pratt.

"We created many chances in the match and showed we could compete, but unfortunately too many chances and half chances were put down. If these were taken we would have had a very good opportunity at bowling them out."

"As it was Pakistan batsmen took the total out of reach of our limited batting line up," Ms Pratt commented.

"This was our first full international series and we are not falling into the trap of judging it's success solely on the results," said Mark Burns, HKCA Chairman of Selectors (Women).

"The tour has provided a wealth of invaluable experience to our relatively 'green' squad. We may not have qualified for the next phase of the Women's World Cup but the many lessons our squad have learned from competing in this series, especially the several younger players, will stand us in good stead for the future."

"The publicity and interest generated by the tour has also helped raise the profile of Women's Cricket in Hong Kong and lessons learned may also be applied to strengthen the HKCA Skitz Women's Cricket League."

For match result details see the HKCA website:

The tour was supported by Strawberrynet.com and Imran Sports International.