Sitting down to interview Bismah Maroof comes off the back of some complicated timing discussions over the previous weeks. Fresh out of international cricket, she’s moving house and trying to balance other media requests while spending quality time with her family. Nevertheless, she logs onto the call early.

Just as I’m about to press record, she gestures to someone off-screen. “Fatima, come and say hello,” she says. A couple of seconds later a shy-looking toddler appears on screen, giving a small wave down the camera. “Say hello,” Maroof says, placing Fatima on her lap. As Fatima stares down the camera, Maroof’s husband appears and she is handed over to him, so Maroof can tell her story without interruptions from a three-year-old. However, it’s a story Fatima plays a significant role in.

*****

Last month, Maroof announced her surprise retirement from international cricket. Coming just six months before the T20 World Cup and after 16 years in the Pakistan side, the chapter closed for Pakistan with her decision ends the side’s last remaining tangible link to its earliest days.

“Definitely, it was really hard,” says Maroof of her choice. “It’s a tough decision for every cricketer, but it wasn’t sudden. I have thought a lot about it and after discussion with my family and where I am in my phase of life, for me that was the appropriate decision so I can give more time to my family, and give time to the Pakistan team as well so they can build combinations for the World Cup.

“It was quite emotional for everyone. They [the players] were all crying, me as well, because of the connection I have with the girls, it was quite sudden for them as well and definitely it was emotional… Of course, you always want to play. But having said that, cricket is a part of life, but it’s not your whole life. You have to think bigger and take that decision out of it.”

Playing international cricket is essentially the only life Maroof has known. She made her international debut when she was just 15 years old, scouted in the nets by Pakistan's head coach, having never played a domestic cricket match before. She was catapulted straight into the senior squad.

“I was very young,” Maroof says. “I remember Hong Kong were touring Pakistan and he [the coach] said ‘She has a talent, and I think we should groom her for the team’. He said I could represent Pakistan for a long time.”

While Maroof’s accelerated path into international cricket seems surprising now given the expansion in player pathways and franchise leagues springing up around the world, it’s representative of where women’s cricket in Pakistan was in the mid-2000s. When Maroof made her international debut in 2006, the national team was less than ten years old, and only two years on from an ugly rupture between the PCB and Pakistan Women’s Cricket Control Association, who both claimed control of the women’s national side.

Parachuted in to open the batting in her first recognised international match, against India in Jaipur in the Asia Cup, she made 43 and narrowly missed out on top scoring for her side. Over the next few years, she cemented herself at the top of the order in a Pakistan team which boasted some of the most recognisable names in women’s cricket in Pakistan. She counts Javeira Khan as a close friend and became part of a group that would drive the women’s game forward over the next decade, including Urooj Mumtaz, Sana Mir and Asmavia Iqbal.

“For me, firstly I didn’t want to be a professional cricketer,” says Maroof. “That was my family, they gave me the support and the aim. They told me ‘You have a talent, you should follow it’. Then I found that I was enjoying it. What I feel proudest of is the daughters, the parents want their daughters to play cricket in Pakistan, that is a huge difference we’ve made. The former players, the hard yards they’ve put in, that’s the proudest moment for me and other former players as well.”

*****

For the first years of her career, Maroof was tasked with leading a volatile batting unit. While notable for their absence of milestones, Maroof scored more runs for Pakistan in ODIs than anyone in her first four years of international cricket. Pakistan’s introduction to the T20I format in late 2009 proved a pivotal moment.

In the T20 World Cup that year, Maroof scored her first international half-century in a match against Sri Lanka. In 2010 she was part of the side which won Pakistan’s first cricket gold medal in the Asian Games - the first time women’s cricket was part of the event. That victory prompted a key advancement for Pakistan’s female international cricketers. In 2011, Maroof was among the first tranche of players awarded professional contracts by the PCB, with match fees also introduced (previously players were only given a daily allowance for expenses by the board). Many had held near-full-time jobs.

[breakout id="0"][/breakout]

From this first foray into professional women’s cricket in Pakistan, the landscape now has been significantly expanded. Last year, 74 women’s cricketers were handed domestic contracts by the PCB. Centrally contracted player salaries have also been substantially increased. However, as Maroof makes plain, to sustain the progress made at the top of the system, there needs to be more progress in the structures which support it.

“The pathways are still not there,” she says. “I think it’s very important to have a league for ourselves because we have played in some exhibition matches - three, I think - that was incredible. The experience we got with international cricketers, sharing dressing rooms and the field with them, and the insights we got was a big learning for us and of course the youngsters as well.

“It was very unfortunate that we didn’t get any matches last year. This year they’ve planned for it, and I hope it’s done in the future. It will help our players to be groomed for competitive cricket because we haven’t got many players going to the leagues outside. So it’s much needed for us to have a league for ourselves to develop our strength here.”

No Pakistan player was picked up in a women’s franchise league last year. Three years ago, the PCB committed to launching a women’s PSL equivalent by 2023. However at the start of this year, that timeline was pushed back, and the exhibition matches which have been held to lay the groundwork for such a league, and attracted names like Tammy Beaumont and Laura Wolvaardt in previous years, were scrapped. The delay in establishing a women’s PSL is an overlooked impact of the instability in PCB leadership over the last year.

“It’s very, very important to have international players coming here and getting to know each other and talking about cricket,” says Maroof. “I have experienced that when captaining in the exhibition matches. Discussing with international players how they go about their game and what they do in different situations was a learning for me, definitely it will help our youngsters. It’s very important to have competitive cricket ourselves before you touch that [international] level.”

*****

By late 2017, Maroof was captain of both the T20I side and ODI side. The latter came after a messy fallout between previous captain Sana Mir and the team management in response to a disastrous 2017 World Cup campaign. In the aftermath of such a public rift and amidst a revamp of the women's setup in Pakistan, Maroof led the side to a historic achievement in New Zealand. Chasing down 156 to win the final ODI of the series, Maroof anchored the chase to take Pakistan to their first victory over New Zealand in 13 attempts.

That was followed by an ODI whitewash over Sri Lanka and a T20I demolition of Bangladesh. But, at the peak of her powers having led the run-scoring charts for Pakistan in the 2018 Asia Cup, injuries began to punctuate Maroof’s ascension further into the halls of Pakistan greats.

“My injuries,” says Maroof when asked about the most challenging points of her career. “I have had three or four comebacks, especially when I was captaining. That was I think a very hard moment because it wasn’t easy to come back after injury, and had motherhood as well. That was a lot of hard work I had to put in.”

Maroof underwent a four-hour eye surgery ahead of the 2018 T20 World Cup; serious concerns over her vision had put her playing career at risk. She relinquished the captaincy for the tournament to Javeira Khan during her rehab. A year after returning to the side she suffered a fractured finger and missed the next T20 World Cup. That finger injury was the start of a two-year-long absence from international cricket when she became pregnant towards the end of 2022.

Maroof’s return to international cricket following the birth of her daughter Fatima is a much-publicised chapter of her career, and the difficulties female players face in pairing parenthood with a professional career are still under-recognised. Last month, Nat Sciver-Brunt revealed she missed England’s T20I series against Pakistan after undergoing egg-freezing treatment, citing that she didn’t feel she could carry a child and continue her career. There are currently few players with children playing women’s international cricket and even fewer who carried their babies. With specific research into women’s physiology in elite sports still playing catch-up, there’s scant concrete knowledge on the challenges surrounding women returning to elite sport after giving birth.

In late 2020, Maroof became the first beneficiary of the PCB’s maternity leave policy, which gives mothers a year of paid leave and, for centrally contracted players, a guaranteed contract extension the following year.

“I never thought I would play after motherhood,” says Maroof. “When I was leaving the team during my pregnancy, I got a feeling that I should come back. I wasn’t satisfied that I had given my full to the team. So in the back of my mind that was there.

“Then, credit to the people who were in the PCB at that time, especially Urooj Mumtaz and Wasim Khan, I came to know about the parental policy, which was a surprise for me as well. I was very excited. If my board is supporting me then I should come back and give whatever I can, or at least I should try. If I could get the fitness then I knew I would be okay with the skills.

“Firstly, I was very much into that the delivery process would be normal if I wanted to come back. I persisted on that, but some of the doctors said your case is likely to have a C-section, but I was very reluctant and said I’ll give it a shot for a normal case. Ahmadullah I got a normal delivery, that helped me come back sooner.

“Forty days after delivery I went to the gym and started training. But I understood at that time that I couldn’t push myself hard. It’s a slow process, I had to give myself time and see where I was after one and a half months. But I got that fitness and that was incredible, I can’t imagine now how I did that.”

Six months after giving birth, Maroof was captaining Pakistan in the 2022 World Cup in New Zealand. In the opening match of Pakistan’s campaign against India, pictures of the India players playing with and taking photos with Fatima went viral on social media. The images were of multiple significance. The political tension between the two countries were set to one side, and they shone a light on Maroof balancing captaining her country while a still-dependent young baby watched from the boundary edge.

Returning just six months after giving birth to Fatima, Bismah Maroof scored 78* against Australia in the #CWC22 today, and signalled to her daughter on reaching her half-century, as her mother looked on.

An inspiring moment on #InternationalWomensDay 🥰 pic.twitter.com/LV5yAPcQBy

— Wisden India (@WisdenIndia) March 8, 2022

“I think that was a very different thing for all of the cricketers there,” says Maroof. “No one has the baby in the team and they appreciated me and they loved Fatima. They all played with her and I remember the India players went viral. I hadn’t met with the Indian team before the match, but I had seen many teams and players in my hotel and they played with Fatima and encouraged me, but after the match with the India players coming to see Fatima, that was a whole picture.”

Maroof has spent the last three years of her international career with Fatima in tow while enjoying the most prolific period of her international career. Only Sidra Ameen has scored more women’s ODI runs for Pakistan than Maroof since the beginning of 2022 and no one has scored more half-centuries. There have been challenging moments, such as being unable to stay with Fatima in the athlete's village during the Commonwealth Games in 2022. But it’s a period Maroof reflects on with obvious pride.

“It’s a very different experience and it’s the most satisfying thing for me that I have balanced my professional life and my motherhood,” says Maroof. “Because I couldn’t leave Fatima… Ahmadullah it all went well.”

With the responsibilities of international cricket now over, for both Maroof and Fatima, there’s an adjustment to no longer living life together on the road.

“I’m not sure of [my future plans] yet because I’m still enjoying my family life right now, especially with Fatima. I haven’t really thought about it… But I haven’t spent much time at home, so it’s a very different feeling. I didn’t get any kind of routine because it was all about cricket for 17 years. So I’m adjusting, and I’m looking forward to spending quality time with Fatima.”

Subscribe to the Wisden Cricket YouTube channel for post-match analysis, player interviews, and much more.