“I don’t think we can replace Sana.” Bismah Maroof, Pakistan’s captain, is categorical about what the retirement of Sana Mir means for her team. Maroof knows she can’t easily replace Sana’s expertise of a national record 240 wickets, or the experience of 15 years, or the big sister with a ready arm around sagging shoulders in the dressing room.

Mir’s retirement in March was a personal blow to Maroof, too. “You are everything one could look for in a mentor,” she wrote in an emotional Twitter tribute to a “friend and sister”. During Mir’s controversial axing from the squad for the T20 World Cup, the captain had made her stance clear: She had wanted the veteran on her team.

Maroof knows Pakistan can’t replace Sana, so the skipper isn’t going to put pressure on herself and her team to try. Instead, they’re just forging a new path for Pakistan, in their own style.

When the Pakistan Cricket Board announced a five-year plan in June, one of the objectives was to “inspire generations through our women’s game”. With the announcement of their new cycle of contracts, they reiterated their faith in Maroof, despite her being in and out of the squad in the past two years because of injury, with a promotion. “She has been a phenomenal performer and has risen to the occasion whenever the situation demanded,” Urooj Mumtaz, the chief selector, said.

After all, in all these years, the one conviction she has come to hold is that even the best laid plans can be upended: a hand injury prematurely ended her 2017 World Cup; a life-threatening sinus surgery in 2018 left her wondering if she’d ever play cricket again; a fractured finger cut short her 2020 T20 World Cup campaign, the first time she was leading her country in a world event. Now, married since 2018 and with the support of her family, she’s convinced more than ever that with any setback, “I know there’s a reason, there’s a larger plan for my betterment”.

As for Pakistan, they will hope that their plan, with Maroof at the helm, is a road to betterment as well.