BD Red starts its journey to a winning note

The Bangabandhu 9th Bangladesh Games kick-started with a Women’s Cricket Event at the picturesque Sylhet International Cricket Stadium (SICS) in Sylhet yesterday. Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) picked the 45 players from the National team, Under-19 and the Emerging teams and divided them into three teams-Bangladesh Red, Bangladesh Blue and Bangladesh Green-for this tournament keeping an unlikely balance among the team so that the games of the tournament could be competitive. Bangladesh Red locked horns with Bangladesh Blue in the opening game, wherein Bangladesh Blue registered their first victory over Bangladesh Red in the tea garden-girt city.

Chasing a small target of 64 runs, Bangladesh Blue team's two opening batsmen reached the target in only 15.5 overs. Opener, Shamima Sultana (31*) and Murshida Khatun (25*) remained unbeaten and departed the field with victory.

Earlier, Bangladesh Blue bundled up Bangladesh Red by 63 runs. Left-arm medium pacer Fariha Islam Trishna took 6 wickets, Salma Khatun took 2 wickets and Sobhana Mustari and Jahanara Alam took 1 wicket each.

The highest 21 runs for Bangladesh Red team came from the bat of Zinnat Asiya Ortthi, besides Rubia Haider scored 10 runs. Fariha Islam Trishna named as the player of the match for her exceptional bowling performance. In addition, the 50-over tournament will be played in a round-robin format with the top two teams playing in the final.

The women’s national team last took the field on March 2, 2020 during the Tigresses’ poor display in the ICC Women’s Twenty20 World Cup in Australia. They went on to lose all the four group-stage matches in that tournament, which was also the last major ICC event before the pandemic brought the world to a grinding halt.

The Tigresses are however braced for a busy 2021 as they will also be taking part in the 2021 ICC Women’s World Cup qualifiers in Sri Lanka from June 26 to July 10 after the completion of Bangladesh Games.