Nazia Nazir beats the odds to become women’s cricket umpire

LAHORE: Nazia Nazir hails from Okara, where her love and passion for the game brought her to the field of umpiring.

Narrating her story, Nazia said that she belongs to an area where education for girls was not that easy but her love for the game persuaded her to travel to Lahore to study further and play cricket. During college days, she used to avoid publicity as she didn’t want her family to know that she was playing cricket.

She said: “Due to opposition of my family members and despite working hard, I couldn’t represent Pakistan national team. I didn’t lose my hope there and decided to remain attached to the game and therefore pursued umpiring.”

Recalling her emotions over supervising her first match, Nazia said: “A night before supervising a local match, I couldn’t believe I was actually supervising the match and in excitement, couldn’t sleep all night. I still have no words to express how I felt when I was standing and supervising a women’s inter-departmental match.”

Nazia is among six women’s umpires who are supervising matches of the ongoing women’s triangular tournament that started in Lahore on Tuesday.

“I have set a target for myself to be one of the umpires in the ICC’s panel. I am confident supervising matches in domestic matches will help me bring improvement in my umpiring decisions and graduate to the next level,” she said.