Bangladesh Women’s cricket team is confident of doing well in the forthcoming ICC Women’s World Twenty20 as they leave for West Indies today to take part in the competition.
The sixth edition of the 10-team tournament will start on November 9 and Bangladesh will face hosts and current champions West Indies on the opening day of their Group A encounter in Guyana.
Bangladesh earned a place in the tournament by becoming the champion of the qualifier tournament that was held at Netherlands in July.
England, South Africa and Sri Lanka are the other teams of the group as the top two teams from each group will go through to the semifinal.
Bangladesh took part in the competition just twice - first at home in 2014 and then in India in 2016 - and although the they were eliminated from the first round on both occasions, this time Salma Khatun looked confident for a better show.
Bangladesh’s confidence has been high as they beat a strong India twice to become Asia Cup champions earlier this year and they got a good practice before leaving for the Caribbean Islands to accentuate that.
“Before leaving we played three practice matches against men and our girls put up some good performances in those games. If we can continue this performance in the World Cup, we will achieve a good result,” said Salma to the media before leaving Dhaka.
Salma thought an early arrival at the host country will give them the impetus.
“We are leaving 10-12 days before the tournament to acclimatize with the conditions. We do not have much knowledge about their condition, weather and wicket. As we are reaching early, hopefully we can cope-up with these things,” said the experienced skipper.
Bangladesh will play their next game against England on November at the Darren Sammy Stadium at Gros Islet before taking on Sri Lanka at the same ground two days later and will play their last group match on 18 November against South Africa at the same venue.
Bangladesh coach Anju Jain thought her charges were confident of putting up a good show and she thought the team had enough talent to bring good results by fulfilling their responsibilities.
“Everyone is confident at this moment. Hopefully this World Cup will be a great experience for us. The girls have immense talent, so they can be endowed with more responsibility. We are giving them some responsibility and hopefully they will respond accordingly. Things are going nicely,” said the former Indian player.
Bangladesh team’s strongest suit is their bowling and its manager Nazmul Abedin Fahim thought in West Indian conditions, the quality of Bangladesh spinners will bring great results for the Tigresses.
“We have seen the effects of spinners both in South Africa and Ireland. Although those conditions were unlike our conditions but the girls did very well in those places. I think West Indies conditions will not be a huge problem for them,” said Fahim.
“We have some good spinners like (Khadija-tul) Kubra, Rumana (Ahmed), and Nahida (Akhtar). Leg-spinner Nahida was our main weapon in Asia Cup. She’s turning into a superb bowler. We have a great spin attack,” the manager added.
Squad
Salma Khatun (C), Rumana Ahmed, Jahanara Alam, Fargana Haque, Khadija-tul Kubra, Fahima Khatun, Ayasha Rahman, Shamima Sultana, Nahida Akhtar, Panna Ghosh, Ritu Moni, Sanjida Islam, Nigar Sultana, Lata Mondol and Sharmin Akhar Supta