Yorkshire’s link with Pakistan Super League team Lahore Qalandars has recently paid dividends for a young star from the Club’s Performance Pathway.
Imaan Effendi, an all-rounder who has been selected in the Under 18s Performance squad for winter training, was the lucky player who was able to train at the Qalandars High Performance Centre in Lahore in December.
Visiting the region on a family holiday during the school break, Imaan became the latest Yorkshire talent to take advantage of the Club’s partnership, with Shahzaib Sayeed the first beneficiary in February 2022.
The Qalandars High Performance Centre is renowned for its fantastic facilities, for which Imaan was able to take advantage of alongside access to some high-quality coaches from the region.
Speaking of the experience, Imaan said: “The opportunity to visit the Lahore Qalandars over the Christmas break was simply amazing and an experience I will always remember.
“The facilities at the high-performance centre are just out of this world. My sessions included a mixture of batting, bowling and also featured an intra-squad game with their emerging girl’s academy team.
“It was awesome also to meet Haris Rauf again and he shared some tips with me. I’m so pleased that Lord Patel signed up to our collaboration with the Lahore Qalandars as this will help all our Yorkshire players from different age groups to improve their cricket skills. I look forward to going back again in the future when I’ve got holidays from school. Thank you so much to Sameen Rana and his amazing team.”
Kevin Gresham, the County Girls Lead for Yorkshire said: “We are very grateful to Lahore Qalandars for facilitating Imaan’s training and offering access to some of their great coaches. The experience that she had whilst with them was phenomenal and it will no doubt have accelerated her development as a player.
“We are fortunate to have an ever-growing pool of talented girls to pick from in the county which is testament to the hard work being done at grassroots level to encourage more girls to play and with fantastic opportunities like this now available, the women’s game in this county if going to continue to go from strength-to-strength.
“The Qalandars High Performance Centre is widely regarded as one of the best in the world and the partnership that Yorkshire now have with them will help us to learn from them and share knowledge that will only help us to grow both the game generally and out talent pool.”
Sameen Rana, Lahore Qalandars Owner and Chief Operating Officer, said: “We were happy to host Imaan Effendi at the Qalandars High Performance Centre. Imaan is a very impressive youngster and a credit to her family and YCCC. We look forward to hosting more cricketers from Yorkshire as part of our collaboration with YCCC. We would like to take the opportunity to thank Lord Patel in engaging with us in the first place to establish this exciting partnership.
“We are very passionate to promote women’s cricket in the region and encourage more females to take part in the best sport in the world.”
