Negligible budgets, stringent dress codes, few monetary benefits and almost no interest in women’s sports by the authorities are enough to dissuade any woman from donning sports gear.

Women’s cricket team skipper Urooj Mumtaz, whose side has qualified for next year’s World Cup, didn’t get good press when the team returned to Pakistan a month ago.

Yet the team has sent out a quiet message to those who sneer with “does Pakistan really have a women’s team?” or “has the cricket women’s team ever won a match?”

While Mumtaz and her team have made their mark, the 22-year-old skipper, who has just taken her dentistry examinations, does not see a career in cricket.

Like her teammates, she treats the game as a hobby and does not bother about the returns -- Rs 300 a day! Some adventurous women are looking beyond cricket and football at more thrilling sports.

Anmaar Habib, 18, became the first woman skier to represent Pakistan at an international event and is now training for the 2010 Winter Olympics.

“Me representing Pakistan in the Winter Olympics would be a total breakthrough for the country,” she told National Public Radio recently.

Skiing in Pakistan is not easy because women are not allowed to wear skiing suits and are expected to cover their heads with a scarf.

“A lot of women cover their head but I don’t. When we’re not skiing, we wear a shawl... We don’t wear speed suits because they’re pretty much your second skin. I wear my speed suit and I just wear sweats over it,” Habib said.

The odds have only strengthened the resolve of Habib, who wants to change the image of Pakistan and more specifically of Pakistani women.

Pakistan Air Force’s Nadia Hassan Khan too has qualified for a skiing race at the Asian Winter Games.

“Even qualifying for a race in the Asian Games carries a lot of meaning for beginners like us,” she said.

The women’s hockey team qualified for the Doha Asian Games, but was not allowed to participate because the authorities did not want the girls to “embarrass” the country with a poor performance.

“Qualifying for the Games is itself proof of their fitness. They really deserved to participate,” their coach Shaista Javaid told ‘The Review magazine’.

But Javaid and her girls are not giving up - they will work harder and improve their game.

The lack of quotas in schools or colleges for sportspersons also discourages many students from taking up sports.

“Students enter colleges and universities on sports scholarships all over the world but such facilities are not offered in Pakistan,” Javaid said.

Even elite schools do not understand the significance of sports. Maliha Khursheed, who has qualified for the Table Tennis World Cup 2010, had to miss several international tournaments because of her exams.

But she is going strong and winning medals whenever her schedule does not clash with her tests.

Pakistan’s women’s football team has played against Afghanistan and Jordan and hopes to tour Maldives and Norway this year. The many football clubs also hope to get sponsorships.

Nilofer Bakhtiar, the former tourism minister who had to quit after newspapers splashed pictures of her hugging a male instructor after a parajump in France last year, admits that women’s sports has never been a priority in Pakistan.

“We did a lot for women’s empowerment but I could not concentrate on women’s sports as much as I wanted to. The ministry of sports is always short of funds. The sports budget is so limited that it gets consumed by men,” she said.

A silver lining for women tennis players is the upcoming All Pakistan Benazir Shaheed Women’s Tennis Championship, where top players Sara Mahboob Khan, Natasha Afridi and Mehak Khokhar will get to showcase their talent.

The girls, who are already going great guns, hope to better their rankings in the near future.