Bangladesh aim to shock Australia in T20 WC

Bangladesh women’s team vowed to vie against mounting odds to upset the hosts and defending champions Australia in their second Group A match of the ICC Women’s Twenty20 World Cup in Canberra, Australia today.

The match will begin at 2:00pm Bangladesh Standard Time at the Manuka Oval in the Australian capital and will be televised live by GTV and Star Sports 2.

Both teams lost their opening match of the tournament to India, but Australia bounced back with a five-wicket win over Sri Lanka on Monday.

Australia were the overwhelming favourites against Bangladesh, but pacer Jahanara Alam refused to accept the match’s result as a forgone conclusion and said that her team-mates would nter the field aiming for a win.

‘Definitely, we will go for win. What happened in the last match doesn’t matter. It’s a part of game. We are really looking forward and we want to make a strong comeback,’ Jahanara told reporters in the pre-match press-conference on Wednesday.

The match is already set to be a notable one for the country’s women’s cricket as it will be the first time Bangladesh women’s team will face their Australian counterparts in any format.

Bangladesh, who are relatively new in women’s cricket, don’t get a lot of opportunity to face off against top sides, which hugely hampers their chances against big teams, felt Jahanara.

‘Though this is our fourth World Cup but we never got a chance to play against them yet. So this is the first time we are going to face them. We could only analyze their videos and all.

‘This is not good enough, we know. Because this is a big platform. We are competing against a big team which is the defending champion. But actually, we have nothing else to do, we have to go with these analysis,’ she said.

Bangladesh Cricket Board did arrange a couple of series’ for the women’s team against lesser strength sides before the World Cup, but they were not enough to prepare the players to face off against the top ranking teams, felt Jahanara.

Despite their lack of match practice against top teams, Jahanara claimed that the team was eager to test themselves against Australia.

‘We have faced Sri Lanka team, but only Under-23. We had a quadrangular series in India. There were no Indian national players. Only team A and B and Thailand. Thailand is a new comer.

‘So this is a massive change and it impacted us as well. But we are not looking into it. We are really looking forward,’ Jahanara said. (Source: New Age)