Green stays in the dressing room: Pakistan's cricketers wear pink so more women get checked in time

In Pakistan, few things command attention like the national cricket team walking out for a match. On Sunday 18 October, for the opening one-day international of the tri-series against Sri Lanka at Rawalpindi Cricket Stadium, the team walks out in pink. The Pakistan Cricket Board has partnered with Pink Ribbon Pakistan for Breast Cancer Awareness Month: pink shirts for the players, pink ribbons for both teams, officials and coaching staff, pink on the boundary boards, signage and stumps, awareness messages woven through the live broadcast — and free mammogram checkups offered to women fans. The point of all that pink is a single, unglamorous fact: breast cancer found early is far more survivable, and in a country where the subject is often left unspoken, a stadium full of pink starts the conversation in millions of living rooms at once. 'We want to use cricket's immense following to highlight early detection,' said PCB chief operating officer Sumair Ahmad Syed. This is not a match report — the game has not been played yet. It is a sporting institution spending its loudest moment on somebody else's health.

SDG 3 · Good health and well-being — Mechanism: behaviour campaign