Bangladesh Eye Big Advantage by Beating Sri Lanka

Bangladesh started their Women’s Asia Cup campaign with an expected win over Indonesia. Now, they hope to move one step closer to achieving their target by beating Sri Lanka.

Nigar Sultana Joty’s side will face the Sri Lankans at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium on Sunday at 8:30pm Bangladesh time. They are giving extra importance to this match.

Before leaving the country for the Asia Cup, Bangladesh had spoken about their target of reaching the final. To achieve that, Joty had strongly emphasized the importance of avoiding India in the semi-final.

There is no alternative to finishing as champions of their group if Bangladesh want to avoid India in the semi-final. And to do that, they must beat Sri Lanka.

Bangladesh are already aware of this equation. A day before facing the Sri Lankans, team opener Juairiya Ferdous Joyita spoke about it in a video message provided by the Bangladesh Cricket Board.

“Our next match is against Sri Lanka. It will be a very big advantage for us if we can beat Sri Lanka tomorrow. Then we will move towards the semi-final in a much better position and get much closer to our target.”

Bangladesh secured a big 71-run victory over Indonesia in their opening match despite posting a total of just 129 runs. Although their batting was not particularly good that day, the bowlers’ brilliance helped them seal the win. At the same time, Joyita sees gaining experience of the wicket and conditions as another positive.

“We played our first match against Indonesia. Alhamdulillah, we won the match very well. We were able to learn a lot about the environment of the ground and how the wicket behaves. We were able to gain that experience.”

Joyita gave an indication of a good start in the first match with two fours but could not do much after that. She returned after scoring 8 runs off 7 balls. However, the young opener hopes to take responsibility and play a big innings in the upcoming match.

“Everyone will try their best to fulfill their respective responsibilities. Of course, we will try to win. Everyone, please pray for us. My personal goal, as I bat as an opener, will be to make the most of the powerplay and play a big innings, because the match is very important for us.”