Lahore
Afia Amin is a living example of sheer hard work and commitment the way she turned her dream of becoming a female cricket umpire into reality in a year. It all started fourteen years ago from an innocent inquiry. Taken aback by the notion of a man officiating a women’s match, Afia asked Adnan Rashid the reason behind him taking the role to which she was informed that it was due to the lack of female umpires in the circuit.
‘It made me wonder why women cannot umpire matches when they can play?’ recalled 37-year-old Afia, who now has more than 150 official matches under her bel.
‘It was at that time I told my husband that next year I would be officiating women’s matches,’ she said here on Monday while narrating the sage of taking up women cricket umpiring.
Afia had been into sports from her early days, playing baseball for her school and college teams. But, it was the unwillingness of her family that kept her from pursuing sports as a profession early in life. People from my family don’t venture into sports. I am the only person to have done this,’ she said. ‘It is very difficult in our society for women to get into this field. There’s a lot of convincing that needs to be done,’ she added. Afia stated, ‘It is very difficult for a woman to get out of house in my family, even if it is for education. I took up umpiring after marriage. And it happened only because of my husband. He is my inspiration.’
Three years into her marriage, Afia started preparing for examinations to get herself on the PCB’s umpiring panel. nd, within a year, she had cleared them.
As it was to happen, in 2006, she found herself in the middle of the action as an umpire in the same women’s tournament, she had her eyes on. Four years later, Afia stood in the semi-final – between Abbottabad and Karachi, at the Gaddafi Stadium, during an U16 regional tournament.