David Hemp appointed Pakistan women’s coach

Lahore:Australia-based David Hemp has been appointed as the head coach of the Pakistan women’s national cricket team following a robust and transparent recruitment process.

Hemp, who turns 50 next week, has previously coached the Melbourne Stars’ and Victorian women’s cricket teams in Australia’s Women’s Big Bash League between 2015 and 2020, and is also a former Bermuda and Glamorgan captain.

Hemp played 271 first-class matches and scored over 15,000 runs for Glamorgan, Free State and Warwickshire. He also represented Bermuda in 22 one-day internationals from 2006 to 2009, scoring 641 runs with a century and four half-centuries.

Hemp is a qualified UK level four coach who has had a coaching role with Australia’s team for cricketers with an intellectual disability; Premier Cricket’s Prahran and was the director of coaching at Scotch College.

Urooj Mumtaz, Acting Head of Pakistan Women’s Wing and Chair of women’s selection committee: “The PCB is pleased to have appointed David Hemp as Pakistan national women’s team head coach. David brings with him wealth of experience and knowledge, more importantly around women’s cricket development, which is extremely critical to our strategy as part of our endeavour to increase the pool of cricketers and also help them top rise to the level of the front-running international sides.

“David has worked for five years in Australia with the Melbourne and Victoria women’s sides and he is a perfect fit for the role we were looking for as he will be able to use that experience and knowledge to translate into our system that will ultimately benefit Pakistan women’s cricket.

“I am sure our players will make optimum use of David’s expertise and strict work ethics, while I am sure David will have an enjoyable time when he relocates to Pakistan to join the elite company of illustrious coaching staff of Atiq-uz-Zaman, Grant Bradburn, Mohammad Yousuf, Mohammad Zahid and Saqlain Mushtaq at our National High Performance Centre.”

David takes over from Iqbal Imam, who had succeeded Mark Coles. Pakistan will feature in the ICC Women’s World Cup Qualifier next year for the event proper that will take place in New Zealand in 2022.

The PCB had advertised for the role on 18 August and a total of 38 coaches, including 18 foreigners from various Test playing countries had expressed their interests. The final interviews were carried by Wasim Khan (PCB Chief Executive), Urooj Mumtaz and Grant Bradburn (Head of International Coach Development) last week.