Meet the coach of this Kashmir cricket team: Sakina Yusuf, 26

These Days, there’s a strange buzz on the cricket grounds of Srinagar. And it’s all about the Kashmir University men’s team — or rather, its coach.

These Days, there’s a strange buzz on the cricket grounds of Srinagar. And it’s all about the Kashmir University men’s team — or rather, its coach.

Meet Sakina Yusuf, 26, a National Institute of Sports graduate, a state cricketer, and yes, a woman.

A rimmed hat on her head, a bat in hand, she is usually found amidst a bunch of men in white, just two or three years younger than her, heads nodding as she scolds some, cajoles some. No problems at all, for you see, “she knows her stuff.”

“It’s not about her gender; that is never a consideration. Her technique is sound and she has all that’s needed in a good coach. She knows her stuff and that’s what matters,” says Zahoor Akram, the team’s off-spinner and a student in the university’s sociology and social sciences department.

University officials are happy too, even though it took Sakina three years since completing her coaching course to convince them, get them to stop rejecting her application year after year.