Through loss and leadership, Fatima Sana finds her way forward

Fatima Sana's last conversation with her father was during the 2024 T20 World Cup and it was about cricket.

"We had a video call. He watched our match against Sri Lanka and also our game against India and we discussed everything. But then suddenly…" Her voice trails off.

Three days after that conversation, her father had a heart attack and passed away in a Karachi hospital. Sana left the T20 World Cup to be at his funeral and grieve with her family, with no intention of returning to the tournament. "But my mother told me that when my father was in hospital, he told the doctors, 'My daughter is playing for Pakistan' and that it was his wish for me to go back and play the next match," Sana says. "I said to her, 'No mom, I can't do that', but she told me, 'It was your father's wish, so you have to go.' My mother supported me at that time, so I think she is braver than me."

With Pakistan already knocked out of the competition, Sana returned to Dubai and led the team in their final match, against New Zealand. She was stoic as she lined up alongside her team-mates for the national anthems but as soon as the first notes of "Pak Sarzamin" started, tears streamed down her face. Her father was a pilot in the country's air force and a patriot. The pain of losing him was too much to bear.

But already she had proven her age was no barrier to her willingness to take on responsibility, and her returning to the field underlined the commitment she made when she had agreed to lead Pakistan, just weeks before.

Sana was named Pakistan's captain in August 2024 (she had captained in two ODIs before), a little over a month before the T20 World Cup. She replaced the vastly experienced Nida Dar, who was removed following Pakistan's loss to Sri Lanka in the semi-final of the Asia Cup and has since taken an indefinite break from cricket. "I was very shocked when our coach told me," Sana says. "I just went back home, and discussed it with my family and they all told me they thought I could do it. I didn't have time to talk about it to anyone else. But I was a little bit nervous at that time, because it was so sudden."

Having accepted the role, she wanted to step up and do it as well as she could, and might have bitten off more than she could chew. "The coaches told me that I have to manage my workload," she says.

Her numbers reflect how seriously she took the role. Before the recent series against South Africa, where she went wicketless, Sana captained Pakistan in seven ODIs, took 14 wickets at an average of 17.71 significantly better than her 63 wickets overall at 29.74. She has also led in nine T20Is, where she has ten wickets at 20.20 (also an improvement on her overall average of 25.40, though her economy rate is fractionally worse as captain). She's currently the second most prolific fast bowler for Pakistan, just seven short of Asmavia Iqbal at the top, a gap she could close during the upcoming World Cup.

But it's the batting stats that really stand out. Two of her three ODI fifties have come after she was appointed captain, and almost half her T20I career runs, at a strike rate of 146.37, compared to an overall strike rate of 118.46.

Her improved performances have brought calls for her to put herself permanently at No. 5 to stabilise the middle order, and she's hoping she can soon make the role her own. "I am still working on my batting a lot," she says. "When I started playing in the Pakistan team, I was at No. 8, then I moved up to seventh, then sixth and then fifth, so hopefully I will be able to bat higher."

If she's looking for a role model, she need go no further than a woman she looks up to already: Sana Mir, who, though she was moved up and down the order, started and ended her career at No. 5. Mir has been a sounding board for Sana since the earliest days of her career.

"When I was playing domestic cricket, she was in the structures and she saw me at practice, called me aside and asked me if I wanted to play department cricket," Sana says. "After that the process to national selection started.

"When I would go to the National Stadium in Karachi, I just asked everyone where she was. I had seen her when I watched the 2016 T20 World Cup. In the game I watched, Pakistan beat India and after that my whole family became interested in women's cricket. I only knew one woman in Pakistan cricket and that was her."

That soon changed. Sana's time in the game has coincided with a period of increased awareness of women's sport and she was soon captivated by Australian legend - Ellyse Perry. "I first saw her at the 2020 T20 World Cup and I wanted to ask a lot of questions regarding cricket, because I just wanted to learn from her, but when you are in the World Cup, you don't ask a lot of questions, so I just met her and took a picture with her. When I saw her in South Africa the next time, then I asked a lot of questions," Sana says. "One of the things she told me is that I needed a proper bowling coach, which we didn't have. She told me she had a trainer, a batting coach and a bowling coach, everything specifically to help [her] improve."

Pakistan have now appointed former international Junaid Khan as the women's bowling coach. They also regularly have the women's team play against age-group boys' teams to improve their skills, which Sana says benefits both sides. "When we play against Under-16 or Under-17 boys, they have a pace around 120-125kph, which is like the quickest women. It's definitely good for us," she says. "And with Junaid Khan, he's already taught me a lot of different things."

Junaid built his reputation on his ability to swing the ball, which Sana is also working on, albeit from a different angle, as a right-hander. Her ability to get the new ball to move was particularly evident at the World Cup qualifiers in Lahore last April. She finished as the second highest wicket-taker, took 4 for 23 against Scotland, removed Hayley Matthews early in a crucial game against West Indies, and put in an all-round match-winning performance against Thailand, which confirmed Pakistan's spot in the World Cup.

She showed none of the anxiety she was feeling back then. "I was very nervous and there was a lot of pressure on us as well," she says. "But as a team, we had a good senior and junior combination and everyone knows their roles. It ended up being quite calm."

Sana wants them to take that energy into the World Cup, where Pakistan are not being spoken of as serious contenders, especially as they have only won one of their last 21 ODI World Cup games. This time Sana expects things will be different, especially as Pakistan will avoid inter-city travel by being based in Colombo. "It's an advantage for us, to play a whole World Cup in one city. We will try to play good cricket there, and assess the conditions before the matches. And we are very hopeful for this World Cup because we know we played good cricket in the last year, and especially in the qualifiers."

The goal? "To put the team in the semi-final."

And the other goal? To celebrate her father's memory, as a parent who encouraged her to follow her dream. "I was very lucky because my parents supported me a lot, even though women playing sports was not really being done in Pakistan. It's changing and more parents are allowing their daughters to play cricket and look at it as a profession," she says. "My father always wanted me to play for Pakistan, and that motivates me a lot."