Bangladesh defeated the United Arab Emirates convincingly in their Super Six match of the inaugural U-19 Women's Twenty20 World Cup in Potchefstroom Wednesday, but the five-wicket win was not enough to clinch a semi-final spot as the young Tigresses fell short of India and Australia courtesy net run rate.
Prior to this match, India and Australia were sitting in first and second position of the points table with six points and net run rate of +2.84 and +2.21.
South Africa were third on six points with a +0.39 run rate and Bangladesh in fourth on four points with a run rate of +0.286, and a game in hand.
Bangladesh had to win by a huge margin against the Emiratis to topple South Africa and Australia and secure a top-two finish from this group to the semi-finals.
In the end, Bangladesh managed a straightforward victory chasing down 70 with 65 balls to spare, but this wasn't nearly enough to leapfrog Australia, on second spot.
The girls in red and green finished the tournament in third position as only an inferior run rate halted them from advancing to the last four.
UAE won the toss and elected to bat first.
Bangladesh bowlers were economical from the beginning, putting a check on the run rate and also taking regular wickets to restrict UAE for just 69 for nine in the stipulated 20 overs.
Pacer Marufa Akhter bagged two wickets conceding 16 runs while Rabeya Khan picked up three wickets giving away 14 runs.
In reply, Bangladesh had a shaky start as, at one stage, they were 22/3 in 4.3 overs.
But No 3 batter Shorna Akter played a superb attacking innings of 38 off just 19 balls with four fours and two sixes that lifted the tempo for Bangladesh and eventually they reached their target before the halfway mark.
Earlier, the young Tigresses opened their group phase campaign with an impressive seven-wicket win against mighty Australia, which was Bangladesh women's first ever victory against an Australian side in any level or format.
Bangladesh then beat Sri Lanka by 10 runs before rounding off the group stage with a five-wicket victory against the USA.
They advanced to the Super Six as group champions, but suffered a hiccup against the junior Proteas in their first match of the Super Six stage.
Prior to the tournament, Bangladesh had also won their two warm-up games, overcoming South Africa by seven runs (Duckworth/Lewis method) before defeating neighbors India by three runs.
