The cover of the popular Khaleej Times weekend magazine features Zainab Abbas, a Pakistani sports broadcaster.
On its Instagram page, the magazine referred to her as Pakistan’s most well-known female sports presenter. The magazine conducted an interview with the 33-year-old Pakistani sports broadcaster, in which she highlighted many elements of her life and her “amazing path.”
The Khaleej Times captioned the post: “We speak to Pakistan’s most recognized female sports presenter, Zainab Abbas (@zabbasofficial), who is in the UAE for the ongoing Pakistan Super League.”
Zainab Abbas also posted the weekend magazine’s cover on her Instagram account.
She spoke about how she broke into a male-dominated industry like sports. Her early life and challenging journey in this sector were detailed in the press. “When I started, I got a culture shock because sports presenting was very much male-dominated,” she said.
“I now feel times have changed for the better. But when I started, I didn’t know anybody around who I could take help from. There was no female idol that I could look up to because, at that time, there was nobody. So I was kind of thrown in at the deep end, and trying to find my path. I feel, at that time, you are always challenging perceptions of our society. There are lots of prejudices, there are lots of preconceived notions about women talking about sports because there’s always that mentality that ‘how can a woman be talking about sports?’.”
Currently, the sportscaster is in Abu Dhabi for Pakistan Super League matches.
Zainab Abbas is scheduled to make her television debut with the prestigious Sky Sports network. She is the first Pakistani female commentator to accomplish such a milestone. In the summer, she will begin working for the British sports channel. Sky Sports recruited her for one of their tournaments dubbed “The Hundred,” in which they intended to showcase worldwide names, she stated in her interview.
She has made history by being Pakistan’s first female presenter during the 2019 ICC World Cup.
