Bangladesh women’s cricket team have achieved a great feat by claiming triple title victories in T20 format on the trot.
After their back-to-back victories in the six-nation Asia Cup and 2-1 victory in a bilateral T20 series against host Ireland in June, Tigresses on July 14 emerged all-win champions in the eight-team world T20 qualifiers tournament in the Netherlands.
As champions of the qualifiers tournament, Bangladesh got a spot in the Group-A to compete in the ICC Women’s World T20 in West Indies in November 9 to 24.
They will play the first group game against defending champions and host West Indies in the opener on November 9 before playing England, Sri Lanka and South Africa on November 12, 14 and 18 respectively.
Another finalist team of the qualifiers tournament Ireland will join in Group-B with Australia, India, New Zealand and Pakistan to play the world event in Carrabin.
Bangladesh’s victory against Ireland by 25 runs in the final of the Women’s WT20 Qualifiers was their 12th win against two losses in this format, since June 3.
Tigresses remained unstoppable throughout the eight-nation qualifiers tournament event as they got a 25-run victory against Ireland in the final after outplaying Scotland by a 49-run win in the second semifinal, setting their entry into the 10-team Women’s World T20 in West Indies in November 9 to 24.
In their Pool ‘A’ battles, Bangladesh routed Papua New Guinea (PNG) by eight wickets, the Netherlands by seven wickets and United Arab Emirates (UAE) by eight wickets.
Bangladesh kept all their opponent teams to below 100 runs in the qualifiers event as the highest total against them was of 97/10 by Ireland in the final.
The Tigresses restricted Scotland on 76/7 in the semifinal before PNG post 84/6 — the highest in the group stage battle — while the two other teams the Netherlands and UAE were ended to below 50 runs, scoring 42/10 and 39/10 — the lowest total against Bangladesh– respectively.
Prior to their Women’s WT20 mission in the Netherlands, Bangladesh women’s team toured to Ireland to play a three-match T20I series where they routed host side twice by four wickets to seal the series before conceded a six-wicket defeat in the 3rd and last game of a last ball thriller in Dublin on July 1.
Player of the series pace bowler Jahanara Alam set the record of taking a five-for as the first Bangladesh women cricketer, conceding 28 runs in four overs, in the first match to restrict Ireland on 134/8in 20 overs at YMCA Cricket Club in Dublin on June 28.
Bangladesh, notably, conceded the defeat against Ireland after seven successive victories in T20Is in a streak, which began in the successful six-nation Women’s Twenty20 Asia Cup campaign for maiden multinational tournament title in Kula Lumpur earlier in June.
Bangladesh women’s team started their big move to draw the international attention with their first-ever title win in a multinational tournament in the Women’s T20 Asia Cup where they found victories twice against upper-ranked and 6th time champions India.
In the Asia Cup, Bangladesh defeated India by three wickets in the final following a seven-wicket victory in the league phase.
Bangladesh started their campaign in the meet in Malaysia with a six-wicket loss against Sri Lanka in the first game, and then bounced back for four successive victories; registering seven-wicket wins each against Pakistan and India, crushed Thailand by nine wickets before huge70-run victory against host side Malaysia for final berth.
The Asia Cup success promised huge boost in popularity with social media abuzz and monetary support for Bangladesh women’s cricketers as the Bangladesh Cricket Board reward 20 million taka ($236,000) cash for the team and promised to review salaries.
The national team players were being paid BDT 10,000 to 30,000 per month for the last few years, since the salary structure came in place in 2012. Now the scale has been increased BDT 20, 000 to 50,000 per month as BCB decided in a board meeting on June 11.
