Fargana, Nigar included in women’s T20I’s centurions club
Pic- Collected
|| CF Correspondent ||
Bangladesh Fargana Haque and Nigar Sultana became new centurions in women’s Twenty20 international as the matches of Bangladesh women’s team in the recent South Asian Games in Nepal that involved other national teams was granted the international status by the International Cricket Council recently.
So far 23 women batters have scored century in women’s T20I’s after the inclusion of the Bangladeshi duo.Nigar struck an unbeaten 113 off 65 balls in the match while Fargana Haque stayed unbeaten with 110 off 53 balls and this was the only second time two batters scoring a century in Twenty20 international match.
The duo shared an unbroken 236-runs for the third wicket stand, now the highest ever partnership in WT20I, surpassing the 227-run stand of Uganda’s Prosscovia Alako and Maria Kagoya against Mali earlier this year.
The two Ugandans also set up the only other instance of scoring two hundreds in the same Twenty20 international innings against the same opponents.
Bangladesh defeated Maldives by 249 runs on December 5 in the meet after putting 255-2, their highest ever Twenty20 score and third highest in women’s Twenty20 international now.
Bangladesh bowled out Maldives for six-run in the match, which is now the joint lowest total in a women’s Twenty20 international alongside Mali’s six runs against Rwanda in June 2019.
There were some confusion regarding the status of the matches in the Games, held in Pokhara of Nepal from December 1-10 as Bangladesh initially believed to have sent only the emerging team under the guise of the national team.
According to leading English daily New Age, An ICC spokesman confirmed them that apart from the matches of Sri Lanka, who sent their Under-23 squad, it has given Twenty20 international status to other matches as Bangladesh, Nepal and Maldives all fielded their national sides.
A statistician of ESPNCricinfo, a leading cricket-based online news portal, also confirmed that they have updated the statistics of these matches considering them as Twenty20 internationals.
‘The list of 2019 international matches is now final and the matches of these teams [Bangladesh, Nepal and Maldives] are now international matches. Sri Lanka matches have been excluded as they did not send a proper team,’ Sajan Nair, ESPNcricinfo’s Data Services Manager was quoted in New Age on Friday.
The confirmation of women’s matches came at a time when Bangladesh were preparing to fly for Australia to participate in Women’s Twenty20 World Cup, starting on February 21.
Bangladesh’s Nigar Sultana struck an unbeaten 113 off 65 balls in the match while Fargana Haque stayed unbeaten with 110 off 53 balls, only second time two batters scoring a century in Twenty20 international match.
