Retrospective on Asian Champ Tigresses

Bangladesh Women's cricket team stepped in international arena less than one decade ago but blessed with handful of successes. They creep less but make their bone strong enough weighing international heavy titles. The summarized diary of success and failure of Tigresses in 2018 are exposed here.

First ever heavyweight trophy in den
Tigresses uphold three trophies last year and all three successes came in a row. The 'three in three' begins with the attainment of the crown of 7th ACC Women's Asia Cup 2018 in June beating mighty India, who clinched bilateral series against Ireland by 2-1 margin followed by the title of the ICC World T20 Qualifier 2018 in July.
 ICC ninth ranked Bangladesh women started their Asian face off with a six-wicket defeat to Sri Lanka, who bounced back in the very next match of the WT20i tournament beating Pakistan women by seven wickets on June 4. Bangladesh eves caught the spotlight beating six times champion India women by seven wickets on June 6, who extended their winning streak smashing Thailand by nine wickets in the following day and ensured final beating Malaysia by 70 runs.
Bangladesh women became the triumphant of the 7th ACC Women's Asia Cup 2018 title beating mighty India by three wickets at Kinrara Oval, Royal Selangor Club, Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia on June 10.
This is the highest ever sporting achievement for Bangladesh irrespective to format, age and sex.

Road to Caribbean Islands
Bangladesh Women's cricket team secured ICC Women's World T20 berth beating Scotland women by 49 runs in the second semi-final of the ICC World T20 Qualifier 2018 at VRA Ground, Amstelveen on July 12, who became the unbeaten champion of the tournament beating Ireland women's by 25 runs in the final of at the Kampong Cricket Club, Utrecht on July 14.
Tigresses, thus, joined defending champion Windies, England, South Africa and Sri Lanka in Group-A of the ICC Women's Cricket World Cup 2018, who exit from the mega event accompanying all-lose disgrace.

Bird's eye view
Bangladesh women started the year with paltry performances against South Africa women. They lost all five ODIs and three T20i against Proteas girls.
After Asia Cup, Ireland tour and ICC World T20i Qualifier success, they became arrhythmic once again and succumbed against Pakistan women in T20 format at home but turn around in the lone ODI match of the series.
Tigresses played 24 WT20i and won in 12 matches and hence, they ended the year with 50% success rate as the second most successful team after Australia women but they were very gloomy in one-dayers. Red and Green correspondents have lone WODI win against Pakistan women at home partaking in six 50-over matches.
Fargana Hoque, skipper Rumana Ahmed and wicketkeeper cum batter Shamima Sultana are the top Fifty50 scorers in Bangladesh side with 139, 119 and 70 successive collections.
Khadija Tul Kubra is the leading wicket taker among Tigresses in WODI with nine dismissals while Nahida Akter and Rumana Ahmed both preyed five ODI wickets last year.
The statistics of WT20i is even healthier for Bangladesh women. Tigress opener Shamima Sultana collected 396 runs as the leading scorer whilst Fargana Haque and Aysha Rahman are the next two top run getters for Bangladesh with 348 and 318 totals pouring in their respective accounts.
It was a stunning year of Tigress all-rounder and ODI captain Rumana. She is one of the top performers in both ODI and T20 formats with bat and ball equally. She grasped 30 T20i wickets in 2018. T20i skipper Salma Khatun is the second most wicket taker for Bangladesh accompanying Nahida Akter. Both of them hunted 20 T20 international wickets.
Tigresses ended the year remaining at ninth position in both ODI and T20i formats. They own 49 ODI rating points and 191 T20 rating points in the newly formed ICC Women's teams ranking.

Bangla on ICC's website
The International Cricket Council (ICC) published multi-lingual content on their website and social media sites ahead of the ICC Women's World T20i to get more acquainted with the fans.
Bangla and Hindi were the two languages alongside English which ICC selected for their digital firsts of the grand divas cricket festival keeping in mind the craze among ten millions of fans around the world, who speak in these two languages.

Change makers behind the scene
The stars shone in 22 yards are Rumana, Fargana, Ayasha, Jahanara, Fahima, Salma etc. But who illuminate them also deserve the bigger portion of credits.   Tigresses started to star after getting their international coaching staffs, who boost up the girls to explore their latent talents.
The change agents in the Tigresses den consist of three Indian recruits the head coach Anju Jain, assistant coach Devika Palshikar and Physio Anuja Dalvi associated with Australian origin Bronwyn Calver, the batting coach and Catherine Campbell, the bowling tutor coach for newly Asian crowned women.

Stars under the cloud
Success stories of Women's cricket gained overwhelmed popularity in Bangladesh. Thus, eventually question arose about the living standard and facilities available for them.
BCB president Nazmul Hasan revealed the scenario to journalists. He said that they revised many things for girls, brought 17 players under contract. They also raised the salary range up to 30 thousand for 'A' category. 20, 15 and 10 k are the other salary ranges for next categories of players.

Rosy pictures waiting for tomorrow
Tigresses are passionate and dedicated to fly with Red and Green wings even higher. But fuel is surely needed to burn for fire the rockets. BCB already started premier division and first division tournaments for girls.
They also set some long term strategies to thrive Women cricket in Bangladesh, which include age level and school level cricket.
Still starlight covers too little range. The players of the women's cricket leagues are none other than some common names, who are representing here as we see them in the national side from the very beginning. So, the pipeline is very narrow and far cry from the other cricketing nations here.
Talent hunt programmes rewarded Bangladesh with many stars in men's cricket. So, BCB should cuddle the proven means to expand women's cricket platoon.
Like Womens Big Bash League of Australia and England's Kia Super League, India are going to introduce female version of the Indian Premier League (IPL). Bangladesh can introduce franchise tournament for women as well to bring professionalism among women cricketer and encourage girls to be involved more with cricket.


Khadija Tul Kubra

Off-spinner of the Bangladesh women's national cricket team Khadija Tul Kubra wrote her name in the cricket history of the country hauling five wickets in an ODI match.
She picked-up six wickets against Pakistan women's team in the solitary ODI of the series on Monday at Sheikh Kamal International Cricket Stadium in Cox's Bazar. Khadija spent 20 runs delivering 9.5 overs to prey six Pakijas, which is not only the career best bowling figure for her but the best ever spell for an individual Tigress.
.

Fahima hat-tricks
Right handed leg spinner of Bangladesh Women's cricket team Fahima Khatun is the first Bangladesh eve to have T20i hat-trick and the second Tigress to make an international hat-trick. The maiden T20i hat-trick of the Tigress leggy against the UAE cruised Bangladesh to the semi-final in the ICC Women's World T20 Qualifier with a comprehensive eight-wicket win at the Kampong Cricket Club in the Netherlands yesterday. This is the eighth WT20i hat trick.

Rumana Ahmed was the first Tigress to earn the first ever international hat-trick as Bangladesh player in 2016 but it was in ODI match against Ireland.


Jahanara Alam

4In the first meet of the three-match bilateral T20i clashes between hosts Ireland women and visiting Bangladesh women on June 28, Tigress speed star Jahanara Alam crashed host with a five-for as the first ever bowler of Bangladesh women squad in any international format.

4ICC named Jahanara Alam as the 12th player of the ICC Women's World T20 XI after the completion of ICC Women's World T20 in Windies. Jahanara is the first among Tigresses to have the honour to include in the ICC's squad. Jahanara picked up six wickets with the best figure of three for 21 in the ICC Women's World T20.