Bismah was unsure what lay ahead for her cricketing aspirations if she was to become a mother. ©Getty
With the World Cup in sight, it isn't odd to see social media handles of teams and players posturing tough - boasting of their hard workout routines, chiselled bodies and talking of intense preparation. At odds with this have been the visuals put out by the Pakistan Cricket Board, one of which involves the 24-year-old Muneeba Ali holding a toddler in her arms as the team moved through the scenery of Christchurch and clicked pictures.
Nida Dar, who has played for more than a decade, is witnessing different energy in the team in their preparation for the 2022 World Cup in the presence of Fatima, Bismah Maroof's six-month-old daughter. Nicknamed 'babbuji' by Nida, Fatima has become the new centre of attention. "I see so many of our players wanting to hold her and play with her. It has brought a different energy in the team - just playing with her or watching her around brings child-like happiness."
The change hasn't skipped Bismah's attention either. "Right after practice, everyone wants to meet Fatima. They start missing her if she isn't around even for a few hours. Even later in the day, if someone is stressed out, they come over to my room and play with her.
"With a kid around, it's a different energy in the team, everyone feels relaxed. When you're too focussed on one thing, it builds pressure on you. When you're around a kid, all your unnecessary worries disappear. And it shows in the team, they've gelled well in helping me around - either to pick my bags or my kid, and that helps going into a competition."
It's a life of different challenges that Bismah is leading these days, dabbling between her fitness, batting, captaincy and responsibilities as a mother. Despite the added load, she is glad "Fatima is a good child", who doesn't wake her up more than twice or thrice a night.
"I try to make sure that Fatima doesn't wake up before I leave for practice. If she's awake, my mother and Fatima both come along with us. But on most days, I return from practice and meet her. Till the time she doesn't see me, she behaves normally. But when I come in front of her, she doesn't want to leave me, she wants to be around no one else. Thankfully, she's a good girl. She goes to sleep around 10-11 and doesn't cause much trouble as I've heard about some of the other kids."
Bismah is one of the eight mothers playing in the ongoing World Cup and will be the first Pakistani to resume national duty post motherhood. In a country where most cricketers have had their cricket careers end post-marriage, Bismah's life has taken a different turn. A soft-spoken, unassuming personality, at some point she too had believed that a similar fate awaited her.
"Looking at some of my teammates, I had never imagined that I would be able to continue playing cricket after marriage, let alone after becoming a mother. But fortunately, I had my family's support, especially my husband who believed that I could become an inspiration for the other girls who too can play after becoming a mother."
The apprehension wasn't surprising. Only a few months earlier, her long-time teammate Nain Abidi had marked her return to competitive cricket post-childbirth after moving base to USA. However, without a parental policy to support her reintegration back into the game, she had to
