After qualifier win, Bangladesh target semi-finals at World T20

They cruised through the group stage, none of Papua New Guinea, the Netherlands and United Arab Emirates threatening an upset. They then crushed Scotland by 49 runs in the semi-finals to enter the ICC Women’s World T20 2018, and topped that up with a win over Ireland in the final on Saturday, the 25-run win making sure they kept their recent supremacy over Ireland intact.

Bangladesh came in to the tournament as the highest-ranked team and lived up to the billing, and are now looking at building on their recent gains to go even bigger when the World T20 takes place in the Caribbean in November.

“We are really excited to play the World Cup in November in West Indies. Definitely, we will try to do some better show over there. And our target will be definitely to play the semi-final. We’ll try,” said Jahanara Alam, the experienced medium pacer, after the final win.

Alam’s confidence stems not just from the performance at the qualifiers, but her team’s recent run. Just before traveling to the Netherlands, they won a close three-match Twenty20 International series in Ireland 2-1. And before that, they landed the big fish, not once but twice, when they beat India to win the Women’s T20 Asia Cup in Kuala Lumpur.

“We had a good achievement at the Asia Cup in Malaysia. That was a great achievement for Bangladesh cricket, women’s cricket,” noted Alam. “And here also we’ve got the championship. So (we’ll) try to convert this win and achievement and experience over there (the West Indies) and try to put up a better show.”

On the day in Utrecht, Ireland won the toss and asked Bangladesh to bat and restricted them to 122/9. Not a fantastic total, but decent considering what a low-scoring tournament it has been. It proved to be more than enough as Ireland were bowled out in 18.4 overs for 97 with Panna Ghosh, the medium pacer, returning 5/16.

“We thought we’re going to field first, but unfortunately we lost the toss and got to bat first. Then yes, no problem, but when you go and lose some wickets, and the total was 122, it wasn’t good enough,” said Alam.

“But we thought if we did this score, then we can restrict them below it. Our target was (to stop them) below 100, and we did it.”

The star of the show was Ghosh, who returned her career-best T20I figures, her scalps including Clare Shillington and Laura Delany.

“This is my first time with five wickets in an international match. We all tried our level best. Batting, bowling … everybody was successful, so we are champions and we are so happy. We are really excited for the West Indies,” said Ghosh.

Ghosh ended the tournament with nine wickets as Bangladesh had three bowlers among the top-four wicket-takers: Rumana Ahmed (10 wickets) and Fahima Khatun and Ghosh (9 each) were behind only Ireland’s Lucy O’Reilly, pointing to their strength in the bowling department.