Tigresses want to return to its Asia Cup performance
Image : Collected
|| CF Correspondent ||
Bangladesh national women’s cricket team wants to get over from their Twenty20 World Cup debacle along with getting back to their consistency what they have been showing since their fabulous run from 2018.
The Tigresses clinched their coveted trophy of the 2018 Asia Cup for the first-ever time, what they thought, and the epoch-making victory which rewrites their cricketing progress in a new way.
Bangladesh women’s team was considered as one of the favourites in the 2020 ICC Women’s Twenty20 World Cup due to their fabulous performance in the ICC T20 World Cup Qualifier, where they were unbeaten champions.
In a bid to replicate that performance in the Down Under extravaganza, they went there some few days before the big event to dovetail them with the weather and condition. They thrashed Pakistan in the ICC-accredited warm-up match before stepping into the main draw.
The visitors were in a position to beat New Zealand but they got a narrow escape. But they had wished to maul Sri Lanka to qualify for the next flagship event but they lost to Chamari Athapaththu, who stood tall against Bangladesh bowlers and snatched the triumph from their jaws.
After such a humiliating World Cup campaign, Women’s team head coach Anju Jain and her deputy Devika Palshikar were finding a new address for them and moved to India skipping their BCB job.
As of now, they are now in charge of a state cricket team-Baroda Cricket Association (BCA). It has been reported that the players and the coaches had some conflicts between them.
Denying all the allegations, the Indian coach however said the tigresses were more successful till the date under their shadow. After the Asia Cup victory, Bangladesh has seen 26 victories out of 44 matches.
There were high hopes that the team will do something big this year. But the end didn’t go well with the girls except defeating Pakistan in the warm-up practice match. As of now the team remained coachless.
However, in an interview to Cricfrenzy.com the right-handed fast bowler Jahanara is pointing out about not having any competitive matches against big teams in the last two year which is the main reason for their World Cup catastrophe.
“If we don’t get a match with a big team or a good team, it’s then not difficult, we’ll not have good improvement. For example, if we do not do fitness during this lockdown, fitness will not increase. Rather it’ll continue to be wasted; some freehand will get it equal. Our condition is also at that stage,” Jahanara Alam said.
“If we don’t play with a good team then we will not improve but we will stay in one place. There won’t be too much degradation. As we think Sri Lanka is a weaker team than us. But they stay in the game every year, they play a lot of matches. This is why they are ahead. We can't move forward even if we play as a team. Because we can't gain much experience, we are not playing matches that way,” Jahanara told Cricfrenzy.com.
“We’ve to play a lot of international matches to improve our situation. Besides, we have to play domestic tournaments which we do not have. If there’s no newcomer then it will actually reduce the appetite for the performance of the senior ones. They’ll start to think that they’ve a stable place in the team whether they perform well or not. Winning or losing is another subject, this is what I think,” she added.
The statistics say that Bangladesh has played 44 matches after the 2018 Asia Cup in which there were 41 T20Is and three ODIs. In the past two years, they won 26 T20s and two ODIs, where the team led by Salma faced big teams 22 times.
Bangladesh has played 24 matches against the big tier teams and played three matches with small tier teams between 2016 and 2018.
Despite winning only seven out of 27 matches, their confidence has increased after playing more and more against the big teams. Of these, 12 were T20s and 15 were ODIs.
As per Jahanara, she felt that before going into Asia Cup they were confident to take on big teams as they played competitive matches against big teams though they lost but they played well. And urged that they should give chance to play more matches to groom themselves well.
“We played a series in South Africa before the Asia Cup, but after losing eight matches in a row, confidence continues to grow from there. Despite losing against a good team, it was a competitive match. Everyone played well. We lost a few matches because of poor fielding. After that we’ve not played such a competitive match anymore, in the last two years,” Jahanara said.
“We played a series on their ground before going to the World Cup. Even though we lost there, we do have a competition. We went very close to every match. Then we defeated Pakistan in the preparation match before the World Cup. Basically, we need to play a lot of matches, which we don’t have. Those who are in the top eight teams of ICC play regular matches and we play matches with small teams here. For which it’s difficult to understand the improvement in that way,” she added.
Women’s Cricket Wing Chairman Shafiul Alam Chowdhury Nadel also hoped for something bigger from the women’s team in the World Cup.
He was hyped after the Asia Cup success and did everything needed. Then again he now wants to forget this failure and move forward.
“Although we played well in the Asia Cup and the next few series, we could not maintain this continuity in the World Cup. This is the biggest failure. We did what we needed to do to succeed, and the board didn't say no for anything for us. That is unattainable,” Nadel told Cricfrenzy.
“There are many places to receive. There will be ups and downs in the game like life. Corona came soon after the end of the World Cup. We’ll start again when the situation is normal. I’m hopeful that we will be back again into the consistent performances like the last two years,” he added.
