From a makeup artist to ICC presenter: Zainab Abbas narrates her cricket journey

Pakistani commentator and sports analyst Zainab Abbas after swiftly making a name for herself in Pakistan’s cricket scene which is known to be widely male-dominated, has now also been making waves on an international scale.

The 31-year-old cricket enthusiast turned anchor and sports analyst has become a prominent face on a global scale representing the widely-loved sport of cricket after she was selected by the International Cricket Council (ICC) as one of the presenters for the ICC World Cup 2019.

As per a report by BBC, Abbas had developed an inkling for the sport seeing her father Nasir Abbas play cricket on an international scale for the country who had also attended the same school as former Pakistan captain Ramiz Raja and has even played against India’s Sunil Gavaskar as well.

“I remember me and my father instead of conversing on chai and the weather would only discuss cricket,” she stated.

On the other hand, her mother Andleeb Abbas is a recognized face in Pakistani politics hailing as a senior leader from the country’s ruling party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI).

During the interview she also revealed that she had bene playing the sport since she was in school: “I wasn’t that good of a cricketer but I loved watching cricket. I watched all the matches of the 1999 World Cup, even during my examination days.”

She revealed that her father had been a huge support behind her gaining knowledge eon the sport but went on to say that not many people know that her mother is also a huge cricket enthusiast and knows about the sport more than even she does.

She revealed that she had initially given an interview to become a cricket presenter just for fun on a local news channel in 2015 when she was working as a makeup artist and also had her own studio.

Moreover, she holds Pakistan Super League (PSL) as one of the key stages in her career that helped her build her confidence.

She went on unveiling that in spite of her getting numerous offers to host political talk shows, she declined and would not want to take that path in the future either.