Tigresses eye championship title as they face Ireland today

Two-time champions Bangladesh national women’s team will be looking to clinch yet another championship title of the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup Qualifier when they take on Ireland in the final in Abu Dhabi, UAE today.

The match is scheduled to start at 09:00pm (BST) and will be aired live on Fancode (a live streaming website).

Both Bangladesh and Ireland have already booked their places in the main event of the upcoming ICC Women’s T20 World Cup, scheduled to be held in South Africa next year, after winning their respective semifinal on Friday.

The Tigresses defeated Thailand by 11 runs in the second semifinal while Ireland clinched a narrow four-run win over Zimbabwe to confirm their main event berth.

Bangladesh earlier emerged champions during the previous two qualifying events in 2018 and 2019 respectively while they finished runners-up in 2015 after Ireland won the title by beating Bangladesh in the final.

Bangladesh skipper Nigar Sultana Joty, who has been the leading run-getter in the ongoing tournament with 174 runs, expressed her satisfaction with the way they performed so far in the tournament and set her eyes on the championship title.

“We have qualified for the World Cup and that was our primary goal. As a captain, I’m very proud of the way the girls have played so far in the tournament,” Nigar said after beating Thailand in the semifinal.

“Today it was a close match (against Hong Kong) but everyone believed that we can bring the game in our favour. So far, we have bowled and fielded well and obviously now our target is to win the championship,” she added.

Before the start of the tournament campaign, Bangladesh received major blows as they lost pacer Jahanara Alam and leg-spinner Fahima Khatun due to injuries while batter Fargana Haque was unavailable after being tested Covid positive.

Despite losing three frontline cricketers, Bangladesh went into the final after beating Ireland, Scotland and USA in the group stage before they earned a hard-fought win over Thailand in the semifinal.

All-rounder Salma Khatun said that they now need to make sure they perform well in the global event in order to not play in the qualifying event again.

“We have qualified for the T20 World Cup and I’m extremely happy about it. We don’t want to play the T20 qualifier all the time and qualify by playing these games,” Salma said.

“Next year, we have to make sure that we are in the super eight so that we don’t need to play the qualifier again,” she added.

The Bangladesh Cricket Board President Nazmul Hassan Papon and the BCB Chief Executive Officer Nizamuddin Chowdhury left Dhaka for UAE on Saturday to witness the final between Bangladesh and Ireland.

By Daily Sun