Pak breaks 8-year duck with T20 gold

The most important thing for Sana Mir about winning the first cricket gold medal ever at the Asian Games was what it meant for Pakistan. Mir led Pakistan to a resounding 10-wicket victory over Bangladesh in Friday’s Twenty20 women’s final,sparking celebrations on and off the field.

“We have floods,terrorism and so many other bad things happening back home,but today’s gold medal will give enough reasons to our people smile,” Mir said. In sports,Pakistan’s men cricket team has been caught up in a corruption controversy with three of its players being suspended over allegations of spot fixing during a test match against England in August. “What I am interested in is that the way we have played today,it’s good for people of Pakistan,” she said. Mir did not want to be dragged into the controversy surrounding Salman Butt,Mohammad Amir and Mohammad Asif,whose cases will be heard by ICC’s anti-corruption tribunal in January.

“Whatever is happening (in match fixing allegations) so far we even don’t know whether it’s true or false,” Mir said. Mir took two wickets with her offspin bowling,but the architect of victory was allrounder Nida Rashid with four wickets for 16 runs and a 43-ball 51 runs which featured seven boundaries. The win brought instant rewards for Mir’s team as Pakistan sports officials handed a cash reward of $1,000 to manager Ayesha Ashar soon after the medal ceremony. Pakistan team players counted the money in a loud voice “one,two,three…..” as retired general Arif Hasan and Arif Siddique handed over the cash to Ashar. The team will surely be rewarded with more prizemoney as the government has already promised 10 million rupees (US$117,00) for gold medal performances at the Asian Games. Friday’s gold was the first for Pakistan in eight years at the Asian Games,since boxer Mehrullah won gold at Busan in 2002.RIZWAN ALI