Bangladesh lost by 32 runs against South Africa in a hard-fought contest in their opening fixture of the ICC Cricket World Cup 2022 in Dunedin on Saturday.
Bangladeshi bowlers delivered stand out performances to restrict the Proteas to 207 but the batters were unable to chase down the target after solid starts and a hopeful finish.
Jahanara Alam’s discipline and 19 year-old Fariha Trishna’s exuberance helped Bangladesh to bowl out the Proteas for a below-par score of 207.
Fariha had figures of 3-35, a career best, and the experienced Jahanara and Ritu Moni picked up two wickets each.
A 52-run partnership between skipper Nigar Sultana and Ritu Moni was not enough as Bangladesh were all out for 175 giving South Africa a 32 run victory.
Bangladesh got off to a brilliant start with openers Sharmin Akter and Shamima Sultana putting on a 69 run stand for the first wicket to give Bangladesh belief but South African fast-bowler,Ayabonga Khaka’s flurry of wickets broke the backbone of the Bangladesh run-chase as she ended the match with figures of 4-32 (10).
In-form batter Fargana Hoque was run out and batters-Sharmin (34), Shamima (27), Murshida Khtun (0) Rumana Ahmed-fell to Khaka’s brilliance and Shabnim Islmail castled Ritu Moni (27) to halt Bangladesh’s charge.
South Africa were put into bat and managed to get a total of 207 on the board.
No batter in the South African line-up could reach a fifty as Laura Wolvaardt’s 41, Marizanne Kapp’s 42 and Chloe Tryon’s 39 helped the Proteas to get to 207.
Nigar Sultana talked about taking positives from their first ever World Cup match and pointed out that a better effort with the bat would probably give them their maiden victory.
She said,”Yeah I think it was great – we had a good start by the bowlers and it felt like this is our chance where we could do better, and got South Africa on a decent total, so we were planning about that, that if we could execute our batting plan very well, then the result could be another thing, but there are still a lot of positive sides that our openers got a very good start and I think there are a lot of experienced players over there, so we could implement our gameplan in the next match.”
South African coach Hilton Moreeng praised the Bangladesh team for their effort saying that he was not surprised by the close contest between the two teams
He said,” Bangladesh used the facilities extremely well, asked all the right questions and we were not surprised that they came with the number of spinners that they did and how they bowled there, they put us under a lot of pressure and put our batting line-up under – and they restricted us to a score that they felt that they could defend, actually chase – but we were not surprised, because we know in the conditions they are a team that can do that, in the past games on surfaces like this, its always been tough playing against Bangladesh.”
Hilton appreciated the improvements that Bangladesh has shown in the recent years.
He said,” I think over their last 2-3 years, you’ve seen how they’ve grown as a team and they’ve shown why they are capable of doing it and overall it’s a team that has been growing in stature and experienced players of them also now have started to show what it is that they can do. But we are not surprised about the fight at all.”
