Tigresses to face NZ in crucial WC match today
BSS, Dhaka :
Bangladesh Women’s team will take on New Zealand (NZ) in their third game of the ICC Cricket World Cup today with a renewed confidence following a tremendous performance in the last two matches.
The Tigresses beat Pakistan by seven wickets to make a good start to the marquee event before scaring red-hot favourite England.
They play their match against New Zealand in Guwahati Stadium, a venue where they came agonizingly close to beat England for the first time before Heather Knight rode on luck and pluck to deny them by four wickets.
The match starts at 3.30 PM (Bangladesh Time).
Heather Knight had already started walking off the field the moment Shorna Akter dived forward and appeared to take the catch cleanly.
On-field umpires Claire Polosak and Vrinda Rathi referred the decision to third umpire Gayathri Venugopalan. After a lengthy review, the verdict came: “Inconclusive.”
The benefit of doubt went to the batter – Heather Knight, then on 13 off 38 in the 15th over, went on to craft a match-winning 79 not out off 111 balls to guide England to a victory.
Bangladesh might have lost the match but the confidence went sky high as evidenced by the statement of Fahima Khatun who tormented English batters with 3-16 in 10 overs.
“We started (the World Cup) well and we started our journey with a good win,” Fahima said.
“So, from that sense, we were very much confident. We fell short by 20-30 runs against England. (But) if we can maintain this flow, then (every) team will not be able to take us easily,” she said, adding that they are going to play the World Cup not only to play good cricket but “we will go to win there, no matter who’s our opponent.”
“We won’t see anyone superior, we’ll just go according to our strength and we’d try to play well on that particular day. Ultimately the result will come toward us.”
Fahima said with the bowling attack they have, they are confident of defending any kind of total.
“We have already said that we had a winning score, we will defend that because we were very much confident about our bowling attack and the same was said from our team management; they were very confident about it,” she opined.
New Zealand, however, remained win-less in the tournament after playing two matches so far.
Opening bowler Marufa Akter, who picked up Player of the Match honours against Pakistan, only managed five overs against England.
The 20-year-old spent the second half of Bangladesh’s fielding innings off the ground. But concerns have been downplayed by Fahima.
“She was feeling some cramping issues,” Fahima added.
“I think she’s better now. She’s doing well. I think it was one of the reasons for our loss (against England).
If we could let her bowl two (or) three more overs, then it would be more effective. We missed her a lot.”