Rumana Ahmed out of T20 World Cup qualifier

Nazmul Abedeen, the Bangladesh Cricket Board's women’s wing manager, confirmed to mediapersons on Friday, 9 August, that Rumana was laid low by a knee injury.

Rumana, 28, is second among Bangladesh's all-time Twenty20 International run-scorers (663) and top among wicket-takers (52), and has captained the squad. The leg-spinning all-rounder was one of two from her country that were a part of the Women's Big Bash League rookie programme in 2017-18. She was also named in the ICC Women's T20I Team of the Year in 2018.

''We cannot consider her for the World T20 qualifier as she is going through a recovery program and it will take quite some time for her to recover fully,'' Nazmul said. ''It is certainly a big loss considering she is an experienced cricketer and we will miss that experience in the middle."

Bangladesh are defending champions at the qualifying tournament, which takes place in Scotland from 31 August to 7 September. Eight teams will fight it out for two qualifying spots in the ICC Women's T20 World Cup 2020 in Australia early next year. Bangladesh begin their campaign against Papua New Guinea on the opening day.

The team is preparing for the campaign with a camp in Mirpur before flying to the Netherlands for another 10-day camp. Some members of the senior team were also part of the Bangladesh Emerging squad that travelled to South Africa for three one-dayers and as many T20 games.

''We are hopeful that we can do well in qualifying round and will qualify for the World Cup," Jahanara Alam, the pace bowler, was quoted as saying to reporters. "In the T20 World Cup, we want to win at least two matches first."