Bangladesh women’s kabaddi team defeated Thailand by 40-31 points at the Shaheed Suhrawardi Indoor Stadium in Mirpur on Saturday to reach the semifinals of Women’s Kabaddi World Cup 2025 and thus confirmed their maiden World Cup medal.
This is the second edition of the Women’s Kabaddi World Cup. In the first edition held in India in 2012, Bangladesh topped their group and reached the quarter-finals, eventually finishing fifth.
This time, the players, coaches and officials of Bangladesh set their target to improve position.
The hosts began their campaign with a 42-22 win over Uganda, followed by a 57-27 victory against Germany. In their third match, they suffered 18-43 loss to defending champions India.
“From the moment our group was confirmed, our target was the Thailand match. Our target was to defeat Thailand by giving our absolute best. We have achieved this.” said Bangladesh’s raider Brishti Biswas after Saturday’s match.
“We were united, and that's why we won.” she added.
Brishti also talked about their next target. She said, “Our next goal is we definitely want to play the final. We will not give up. We will give our absolute best.”
India, Chinese Taipei and Iran are other three teams who advanced to the last-four.
Earlier on the day, Iran showed no mercy to Nepal with a dominating 39-11 win.
After three consecutive wins, Iran had lost their previous match to Chinese Taipei, but the victory over Nepal put them back on track to book semifinal berth.
Bangladesh concluded Pool A campaign as runners-up while India finished on top.
The women in red and green will face Pool B winners Chinese Taipei in the second semifinal on Sunday at the same venue while India and Iran face off each other in the other last-four tie.