Nida Dar

Nida Dar, born in January 1987 in Gujranwala, grew up in a cricketing household. Rashid Hassan, her father, played eight first-class matches. Eleven members of her extended family were part of a cricket club. No surprise then that she aspired to play for her country, except that Pakistan didn't have a national women's team at the time.

She played nevertheless, and it was while she was captaining at the collegiate level - for the Higher Education Commission against a Karachi team that had international players - that she found out Pakistan did indeed have a women's team, which had played its first game in 1997.

Dar still had to persuade her family to allow her to play cricket seriously, but found support from her father and trialled for and subsequently became part of the Pakistan team. She made her international debut in the 2010 T20 World Cup against Sri Lanka in the West Indies, and her ODI debut a few months later.

Her all-round abilities came to the fore in the Asian Games, where she helped Pakistan clinch gold medals in 2010 and 2014.

A constant in the Pakistan team since, Dar is the most capped T20I player for Pakistan and was the first Pakistan player, male or female, to take 100 T20I wickets. She is among the first four players to play 100 women's ODIs for Pakistan and also has the second-most wickets in the format behind Sana Mir.

She was named PCB's Women's Cricketer of the Year in 2021. At 36, she took over as Pakistan's all-format captain from Bismah Maroof in April 2023. In December, she led the first Pakistan women's side to win a T20I series in New Zealand, which was also the first time an Asian side achieved the feat.