Bangladesh leave for SA

Bangladesh National Women’s Cricket Team left for South Africa on Monday to participate in the upcoming ICC Women’s T20 World Cup 2023.

The tournament will begin on February 10 with the match between hosts South Africa and Sri Lanka. Bangladesh will play their first match on February 12 against Sri Lanka.

Bangladesh team’s flight left Dhaka at 6:30 PM on Monday, which will take them to South Africa today. A training camp will follow from tomorrow, running until February 2 before the ICC support period begins on February 3. In that period, Bangladesh will play two practice matches against Ireland on January 31 and February 2.

Bangladesh are in group A of the tournament, where they will have Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and Sri Lanka as opponents.

After their opening match against Sri Lanka, they will face Australia on February 14 before taking on New Zealand on February 17. Their final group stage match will be against the hosts on February 21.

Earlier, Bangladesh announced their 15-member squad for the World Cup on Saturday, which included four players from the Under-19 team that is currently playing the U19 T20 World Cup in South Africa - Dilara Akter, Shorna Akter, Disha Bishwas, and Marufa Akter.

Bangladesh faced a torrid time in the last T20 World Cup in 2020 in Australia as they lost all four of their group stage matches. Three of those defeats were against teams that they will face this time around - Australia, New Zealand and Sri Lanka.

Bangladesh have only one win in their T20 World Cup history, which came in 2014. Skipper Nigar Sultana Joty, though, is aiming at changing that record.

“All of us wish to break the record (of winless matches). We have a good momentum away from home, and if we can gain some in the first match, then it will be possible. We can get 2-3 results in the group stage considering our opponents. We just need some momentum,” she said to the media before leaving for South Africa.

Ahead of the tournament, the Bangladesh team practiced in Khulna on bouncy tracks to train for South African ones and then played against men’s teams to deal with the pace. Nigar believes that will be of big help.

“The wickets at Khulna are pace-friendly. That will help in South Africa, where the pitches will have a bit of bounce. That is why we trained at Khulna. We played practice matches against boys, where we probably suffered against pace but it will help us later,” Nigar explained.