KARACHI: It is a rare honour to return to your alma mater as a hero and see the pride in your teachers’ eyes while the students there look up to you. The captain of Pakistan’s women’s cricket team Sana Mir was lucky enough to enjoy such moments on Thursday.
Sana, who now lives in Lahore, touched base in Karachi along with a few other teammates from the city, when they visited the Defence Authority College for Women, where the old student was hailed as the ‘Silver Star’, at the college’s silver jubilee year.
Eager to see her again, Sana’s Urdu teacher, Dr Rubina Sarwar, shared with Dawn that she could feel a kind of restlessness in the girl’s spirit from early on. “She wanted to go play but she would be worried about missing her lessons, too. But I would tell her that it was fine and she could catch up. I’m so glad I said that,” the teacher smiled at the memory.
The college principal, Dr Farhat Agha, also said that she was proud of all students, especially those like Sana who have overcome gender barriers and made a name for themselves not only on the national level but also on the international stage. “Sana, the only Pakistan women’s team captain to have defeated India twice, is a trailblazer,” she said.
"In 2010, my bowling action was termed ‘suspicious’. The ICC tested me in Australia and I failed. I decided to give up cricket but my mother reminded me that I was not a quitter. So I made a comeback as an opening batswoman and am not so bad at it either,” said Javeria Wadood, giving the students a little lesson in perseverance.
Sana herself said that she felt the same as she used to when studying at the college. “Though my college didn’t have a cricket team, I was captain of various other outfits here such as the basketball team, the swimming team, etc. This place gave me the confidence to lead,” she added, remembering how she would sometimes bunk classes with her friends to gather at a particular spot behind the spiral staircase in the basketball court, which they called ‘khadda’. “We would sit there to exchange notes about what happened in class and reflect,” she shared.