������Ƶ

KARACHI: Former Pakistan cricketer Sana Mir made history this week when she became the first woman from her country to be inducted into the International Cricket Council (ICC) Hall of Fame alongside other cricket greats. 

ICC announced the names of the inductees which included Mir, former South African batters Graeme Smith and Hashim Amla, Matthew Hayden of Australia, Daniel Vettori of New Zealand and England’s Sarah Taylor on Monday. 

The ICC Hall of Fame pays tribute to the extraordinary achievements of cricket legends who have shaped the sport’s rich history with players inducted only five years after they have played their last international match. 

“A veteran in over 100 matches in both formats of white-ball cricket, Sana Mir becomes the first Pakistan woman cricketer to be inducted into the ICC Hall of Fame,” the ICC said in a post on its website on Monday. 

Mir has several accolades under her belt. The cricketer remains the highest wicket-taker in ODIs and the second-highest in T20Is among Pakistani women. Mir was also the first Pakistani woman cricketer to pick up 100 ODI wickets.

The former off-spinner has remained a prolific cricket voice off the field as well, amplifying a strong stance on body shaming, prioritizing mental health and helping people affected by the coronavirus pandemic. 

Mir played international cricket for 15 years, captaining Pakistan for eight of those. She picked up 150 wickets in 121 ODIs and 89 wickets in 106 T20Is, scoring 1630 and 820 runs respectively. Her best year was 2014 in which she collected 21 wickets in 11 ODIs while leading the team to an Asian Games gold medal, a feat she had achieved in 2010 as well, one year after being appointed as captain.

In 2018, Mir became the first Pakistani woman to reach the top of the ICC ODI Player Rankings. She was also the first Asian woman cricketer to play 100 T20Is, along with being the first Pakistan woman cricketer to play 100 ODIs.

She was also the first Pakistani woman cricketer to win the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) Cricketer of the Year award and now is the first Pakistani woman to be inducted into the ICC Hall of Fame.

The ICC credited Mir for speaking up for women’s rights and pushing women’s cricket in Pakistan. In 2019, she was included in the ICC Women’s committee as one of the three player representatives and was named the ambassador of the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup Qualifier in 2024.

“Mir knew she was doing the right thing and continued to live by her words, inspiring thousands of girls in not just her country but across the globe,” the ICC said. 

LOS ANGELES: This isn’t the image Los Angeles wanted projected around the globe.
Clouds of tear gas wafting over a throng of protesters on a blocked freeway. Federal immigration agents in tactical garb raiding businesses in search of immigrants without legal status. A messy war of words between President Donald Trump and Gov. Gavin Newsom. Photos captured several Waymo robotaxis set on fire and graffiti scrawled on a federal detention center building, while videos recorded the sounds of rubber bullets and flash-bang grenades hitting crowds.
In a city still reeling from January’s deadly wildfires — and with the World Cup soccer championships and the 2028 Olympics on the horizon — Mayor Karen Bass has been urging residents to come together to revitalize LA’s image by sprucing up streets, planting trees and painting murals so LA shows its best face to nations near and far.
“It’s about pride,” she’s said. “This is the city of dreams.”
Instead, a less flattering side of Los Angeles has been broadcast to the world in recent days. Protests have mostly taken place in a small swath of downtown in the sprawling city of 4 million people. As Trump has activated nearly 5,000 troops to respond in the city, Bass has staunchly pushed back against his assertions that her city is overrun and in crisis.
Bass, in response to Trump, said she was troubled by depictions that the city has been “invaded and occupied by illegal aliens and criminals, and that now violent, insurrectionist mobs are swarming our federal agents. I don’t know if anybody has seen that happen, but I’ve not seen that happen.”
The series of protests began Friday outside a federal detention center, where demonstrators demanded the release of more than 40 people arrested by federal immigration authorities.
Immigration advocates say the people who were detained do not have criminal histories and are being denied their due process rights.
An international city
Much like New York, Los Angeles is an international city that many immigrants call home. The city’s official seal carries images referencing the region’s time under Spanish and Mexican rule. Over 150 languages are spoken by students in the Los Angeles Unified School District. About half of the city’s residents are Latino and about one-third were born outside the US
Bass faulted the Trump administration for creating “a chaotic escalation” by mobilizing troops to quell protests.
“This is the last thing that our city needs,” Bass said.
Los Angeles resident Adam Lerman, who has attended the protests, warned that protests would continue if the Trump administration pushes more raids in the city.
“We are talking about a new riot every day,” Lerman said. ”Everybody knows they are playing with fire.”
It’s not the publicity LA needs as it looks to welcome the world for international sporting events on a grand scale.
“At this stage in the process, most host cities and countries would be putting the final touches on their mega-event red carpet, demonstrating to the world that they are ready to embrace visitors with open arms,” said Jules Boykoff, a Pacific University professor who has written widely on the political and economic impacts of the Olympic Games. The scenes of conflict are “not exactly the best way to entice the world to plan their next tourist trip to the US to watch a sports mega-event.”
A mayor under pressure
The federal raids and protests have created another dicey political moment for Bass, who has been struggling with a budget crisis while trying to recover from political fallout from the wildfires that ignited when she was out of the country.
She’s been careful not to discourage protests but at the same time has pleaded for residents to remain peaceful. The mayor will likely face backlash for involving the Los Angeles Police.
And she needs to fight the perception that the city is unsafe and disorderly, an image fostered by Trump, who in social media posts has depicted Bass as incompetent and said the city has been “invaded” by people who entered the US illegally. Los Angeles is sprawling — roughly 470 square miles (750 square kilometers) — and the protests were mostly concentrated downtown.
“The most important thing right now is that our city be peaceful,” Bass said. “I don’t want people to fall into the chaos that I believe is being created by the (Trump) administration.”
On Monday, workers were clearing debris and broken glass from sidewalks and power-washing graffiti from buildings — among the structures vandalized was the one-time home of the Los Angeles Times across the street from City Hall. Downtown has yet to bounce back since long-running pandemic lockdowns, which reordered work life and left many office towers with high vacancy rates.
Trump and California officials continued to spar online and off, faulting each other for the fallout. At the White House, Trump criticized California leaders by saying “they were afraid of doing anything” and signaled he would support Newsom’s arrest over his handling of the immigration protests.
If Los Angeles’ image was once defined by its balmy Mediterranean climate and the glamor of Hollywood, it’s now known “primarily for disaster,” said Claremont McKenna College political scientist Jack Pitney.
“A lot of perception depends on images,” Pitney added. Right now, the dominant image “is a burning Waymo.”