Dubai, 01 February 2025: UAE women’s cricket captain Esha Oza, who was awarded the ICC Women’s Associate Cricketer of the Year 2024 award last Sunday, met with cricket legends Anjum Chopra and Urooj Mumtaz on the side-lines of the ongoing DP World ILT20 Season 3 and sought valuable advice from them ahead of an important year for UAE women with the ICC Women’s World Cup qualification at stake.

“It was great meeting Anjum and Urooj, both icons of the game and understanding from them how they dealt with pressure and to chat with them so openly and candidly was great. In 2022, when I won the ICC women’s associate cricketer award for the first time, I was super happy and, in a way, also ended up putting pressure on myself to live up to the expectations. Unfortunately I ended up having a bad outing in 2023. So, I really wanted to understand from them how they dealt with pressure,” expressed the 26-year-old.

While Urooj spoke about balancing the pressure and trusting the process, Anjum spoke about the benefits of soaking up the pressure when Esha faces tough teams. “It’s great that Esha has won this award twice. I am sure even without the award, she will carry that pressure of expectations to perform for the UAE team but I would say, that the best way to tackle pressure is to soak it up. Absorb that pressure instead of shunning it out. Learn to use the pressure to your potential instead of letting it get the better of you,” stated Anjum, former India women’s captain.

“Balance the pressure, mentally. Trust in your process, put your captaincy aside and enjoy your batting when you go out there,” adviced Urooj as Esha listened to the legends intently. The trio also shared fun banter around the sport and the big performances by UAE’s upcoming players in the DP World ILT20 Season 3.

Memorable 2024:

Though in 2023, Esha’s performance slid downward, she bounced back in 2024 with dominant performance for UAE showcasing impactful batting and also picked up plenty of wickets. She led the UAE team to the Asian Cricket Council Women’s Premier Cup, finishing as the leading scorer and was named the player of the tournament. The stylish right-hander was also a key contributor in UAE’s campaign at the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup Qualifier where they went up to the knockout stage. She had pulled off a memorable 66 off 44 balls in the semi-finals against Sri Lanka who eventually went on to win the tournament. UAE lost narrowly, short of a mega upset.

“It’s was a massive year (2024) for UAE women’s cricket, it was a great year for me personally as well. I have enjoyed every outing in 2024 and there was a lot of learnings. That loss against Sri Lanka, though was heart-breaking, we learnt a lot from that match and I can say we are a much better team now. Hopefully, I will be able to carry forward the momentum into 2025 as well,” she added.

UAE women’s cricket moving in the right direction

Esha also backed her team’s ambition of making the ICC Women’s World Cup this year and went on to state that it is a realistic goal to make the qualification after missing out last time. “Over the past three years, we have evolved as a team and have had more ups than downs. We want to build on those positives and believe that we have a realistic chance for making the qualification for the World Cup this year. We will be playing the Emerging Teams Asia Cup, where India A and Pakistan A side will also be playing. Asia Region qualifiers for the World Cup will follow and then the Global Qualifiers.”

Esha further emphasized Emirates Cricket Board’s role in developing women’s cricket in the region. She said, “Compared to five years ago, there are a lot of girls taking up cricket now. Many of them are also following our performances. I had a ten-year-old come up to me in my apartment building and tell me, she enjoyed our performance. We have 15-16 year-olds playing for the country. So, parents are also opening up to the idea of their daughters playing cricket which is great. I also come from the same academy where Aayan Afzal Khan and Dhruv Parashar train and today they are playing in the DP World ILT20 with some of the legends of the game. So definitely there is scope and parents are aware of it. I feel like things are moving in the right direction for women’s cricket here.”