A pointless campaign

Bangladesh Women’s team ended their ICC Women’s T20 World Cup campaign without a win suffering a humiliating 10-wicket defeat to South Africa in their last group match at Cape Town in South Africa on Tuesday.

With the win, The Proteas move on to the semi-finals being the first South African side, be it Men’s, Women’s, seniors or juniors of a major ICC tournament staged in the country.

They will face rather tougher opponents, England, in their semi-final fixture on Friday in Cape town. The English come to the semis as the winner of group B, and are yet to lose a match in the World Cup.

Bangladesh went there with a hope of winning at least a couple matches, but found themselves on the losing side in every match they played. They lost their first match to Sri Lanka by seven wickets, then tasted an eight-wicket defeat to Australia, then a 71-run defeat to New Zealand and in the last match, came up with a 10-wicket defeat.

Opting to bat first, Bangladesh fell under pressure from the beginning as they had lost both the openers within the power play and were 22 for two. It was the skipper Nigar Sultana Joty who led the batting side from there. Partnered with Sobhana Mostary, the duo built an important partnership which gave the side a foundation to propel through a moderate total.

Skipper Nigar Sultana scored the highest, 30, Sobhana scored 27 and Nahida Akter’s quick 15 in the end led the side to 113-6. Marizanne Kapp and Ayabonga Khaka took two wickets each for South Africa with Kapp bringing the important breakthrough by taking the wicket of Nigar Sultana.

Coming to chase the target, South Africa were pushed to make errors in the powerplay, but after Sobhana dropped Tazmin Brits, the hosts took it slow and reached the target with 13 balls left.