Nida Dar made her debut for Pakistan in May 2010. Most of the players she came up against have retired. She has not.
Last year, after a season away from international cricket, she made herself available for selection again.
Into a game with nothing around it
Born in Saudi Arabia in January 1987, she came into a Pakistan women’s setup that had very little around it, no professional pathway to speak of and almost no public attention.
She debuted in T20 internationals against Sri Lanka in May 2010, and in one-day internationals against Ireland five months later. A right-hand bat and a right-arm off-spinner, she has spent her career as an all-rounder in sides that usually needed her to be both at once.
A hundred wickets, and a first for Pakistan
In June 2021, against the West Indies, she became the first Pakistani cricketer to take 100 wickets in T20 internationals. Not the first Pakistani woman. The first Pakistani.
She has more than a hundred T20I appearances and over eighty one-day internationals behind her, along with a long domestic record. She is among the most successful bowlers the women’s T20 game has produced anywhere.
The captaincy
She was appointed captain in April 2023 and led the side for around sixteen months across all three formats.
Two results stand out from that spell. In December 2023 Pakistan beat New Zealand in a T20I series, the team’s first series win outside Asia and Ireland. Under the same captaincy Pakistan also whitewashed South Africa in a T20I series. For a side that had spent years being written off before it landed, both were genuine markers.
She stepped down in August 2024, handing over to Fatima Sana.
Lady Lala
The nickname followed her batting. It borrows from Shahid Afridi, and it stuck because the comparison was not much of a stretch: she hits hard, and she has never much cared for playing herself in.
It has become the shorthand for her, and she uses it herself. But it undersells the bowling, which is the part of her game the record books actually remember.
Still available
She is thirty-nine. She has captained her country, held a national record, and won a series abroad that nobody expected.
She could have finished there. Instead she took a year out, and then told the selectors she was available again.
Why we wrote this
Women’s cricket in Pakistan gets a fraction of the coverage the men’s game does, and the players who built it are rarely written about while they are still playing. Nida Dar has been there for sixteen years and is still putting her hand up for selection.
At SmashNRun we build sportswear in Pakistan, for people who train here. Writing about the athletes doing that work is part of the same idea.
Made in Pakistan
What we make
SmashNRun builds sportswear and sports gear in Pakistan, for people who actually train here. Premium make, priced so you can wear it hard.
