FairBreak-bound Sana Mir excited to share stage alongside 'great group of people'

“This is a great example of what sports can do. Sports can transcend boundaries and nationalities and that’s what we are seeing here,” Mir said. “We have a great mix of people from different cultures, faiths and nationalities and they are all together for one cause. It’s brilliant.”Pakistan are well-represented at the tournament with Diana Baig, Aliya Riaz, Fatima Sana and Bismah Maroof involved. Maroof was due to lead the Spirit franchise but her stint has been delayed as she waits for a visa for her daughter, Fatima. Nicola Carey, the Australian allrounder, will lead the team instead. “I haven’t done a lot of captaincy, and I’m very aware of that. I’m happy to get as much input as I can,” Carey said.The other inexperienced skipper is USA’s Sindhu Sriharsha, who is the only captain from an Associate nation, and hopes to use the tournament for both personal and national gain.”Having Mignon du Preez, Kathryn Bryce and Hayley Matthews in the team – there’s so much to learn for me as a leader in terms of how they approach their games,” Sriharsha said. “I am going to bring a third-person view to the game, being an outsider, or an Associate level leader who comes in and sees how they go about things. And I’ve already started to talk to them about what their domestic structure looks like, their grassroots level and what they have done over the years because in the USA we are trying to build and improve the number of players.”Already, Sriharsha has “so many American cricketers who are writing to me saying ‘Can you please hook me up with them (Fairbreak)? I want to be playing in this tournament in the next couple of years.’ And she doesn’t think it will be too long before they are.”Today there are just one or two representatives from these Associate countries but going forward, we will have more. They will be coming over here and competing and challenging Full Member players.”The Fairbreak Global founder Shaun Martyn with the trophy alongside the six captains•FairBreak Global

Carey, too, is in no doubt about that and believes the Full Member players have as much to gain from the experience as Associate cricketers. “It’s a really big learning curve for everyone. That’s what it’s all about, that whole education piece. I might catch up with Heather (Knight, who is in charge of the Barmy Army team) for some captaincy advice so this tournament is also good for players like us (Full Members).”It’s not Knight with the first captaincy conundrum, though. That came from Tornadoes and West Indies’ Stafanie Taylor, who has seen the need to try and pin down a team early. “We have to use the training session to look at players and try to slot them into a side, but it’s going to be really hard to select an XI,” Taylor said.Suzie Bates, who will lead Falcons, agrees. “Selection is the hardest thing – trying to give everyone an opportunity to perform where their strengths are and getting to know the players as quickly as possible,” she said.Bates has already gotten to know some of her players and identified Bhutan’s Anju Gurung, a left-arm seamer, and the two Thai cricketers in her squad, Sornnarin Tippoch and Nannapat Koncharoenkai, as among those to watch, along with the team’s just-made-up celebration of crossed arms and flapping hands, to represent a Falcon salute. Taylor has a one-up on that because Baig, who is in her squad, has been practicing ‘the tornado’, a wicket-taking celebration that is certain to “bring the vibe.”But it’s not all fun and feel-goods and the organisers expect friendships to give way to white-line fever once the tournament begins. “We understand how competitive they are. I am expecting very competitive cricket but also very skilful cricket,” Geoff Lawson, FairBreak’s director of cricket said.”There’s a long list of players that have missed out, that we can’t fit into this tournament so the ones who are here know what they’re doing. I’m expecting some very exciting cricket.”