Bristol, June 27 (IANS) Pakistan have won the toss and elected to bat first against Netherlands in their 2026 Women’s T20 World Cup Group A clash at the County Ground in Bristol on Saturday.

With both sides already knocked out of contention for the semi-finals, Saturday’s fixture will have no impact on the qualification chances of the rest of the teams – Australia, India and South Africa. Both Pakistan and Netherlands are winless and a win for either of them will mean ending the competition on a high.

After winning the toss, Pakistan captain Fatima Sana said Aliya Riaz and Rameen Shamim have been left out, with Tuba Hassan and Eyman Fatima included. “It looks like a batting track, so we just try to put the maximum total here.

“I think we just need to play attacking cricket in this game because we know that we didn’t perform in the last matches. So we just try to play good cricket today. We discussed a lot (about run-outs), and we will try to execute better plans today.”

Netherlands skipper Babette de Leede said Heather Siegers is back in the playing eleven for Myrthe van den Raad. “I think we have really good game plans today. We’ve played on this ground before our last game, so we know what to expect. So we played some top nations, so we think today is the day that we can have our first win.

“I think discipline is going to be massive. We’re going to hit our areas with the ball. In the field, we’ve dropped some catches in this tournament. Today our fielding needs to be really sharp. They have some quality batters, so we have to get them out early and restrict their total.”

Playing XIs

Pakistan: Muneeba Ali (wk), Gull Feroza, Ayesha Zafar, Saira Jabeen, Iram Javed, Fatima Sana (captain), Eyman Fatima, Nashra Sandhu, Tuba Hassan, Diana Baig, and Sadia Iqbal

Netherlands: Heather Siegers, Phebe Molkenboer, Babette de Leede(w/c), Sterre Kalis, Robine Rijke, Sanya Khurana, Frederique Overdijk, Iris Zwilling, Hannah Landheer, Caroline de Lange, and Silver Siegers

–IANS

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