Bangladesh captain Nigar Sultana, playing in her 100th T20I, was right to bat after winning the toss. The logic of having first use of a fresh pitch, and using draining temperatures – a high of 38°C – to sap the energy of the team fielding first was sound. Bangladesh Women won their first T20 World Cup game in over ten years as they kickstarted the ICC T20 World Cup, 2024 on a positive note with a comfortable win over Scotland Women by 16 runs to mark the celebration of their iconic Woman player skipper Nigar Sultana‘s 100th T20I.
Nigar Sultana Joty made history as the first Bangladesh cricketer to play 100 WT20Is when she captained her team against Scotland in their opening match of the 2024 Women’s T20 World Cup in the UAE. The 27-year-old wicketkeeper-batter debuted in T20Is for Bangladesh in 2015 against Pakistan and has since accumulated 1,944 runs in the format. Her highest score, an unbeaten 113, came during a dominant performance against the Maldives, where Bangladesh secured a crushing 249-run victory, earning her the ‘Player of the Match’ award.
Pitch and Toss
Pitch report: “First game of the tournament and its a day game. It’s very hot, high of 38 degrees. Slight breeze. Fairly central pitch. 59m and 62m square boundaries, 73m down the ground. It’s a new surface. Conditions will spin, it might seam a bit as well with the grass” reckon Nasser Hussain and Carlos Brathwaite.
Bangladesh skipper Nigar Sultana in her 100th T20I won the toss and chose to bat first . Scotland skipper Kathryn Bryce who also wanted to bat first considered heat as one of the challenges for the team to adapt.
Saskia Horley’s 3 wicket haul restrict Bangladesh to 119 for 7
After electing to bat, Bangladesh made their intentions clear early on with both openers starting off at a decent clip. Shathi Rani struck a boundary in each of the first two overs, setting the tone early. Just as her partner Murshida Khatun began to catch up with that tempo, she fell trying to loft Kathryn Bryce. But that wicket inside the powerplay did not deter Bangladesh. Rani was joined Shobhana Mostary, who began to match her shot for shot.
While both batters attempted to be aggressive and took risks while playing against the spinners, their intentions were not always fulfilled. Plenty of attempted big hits fell in no man’s land and the boundaries came in a trickle once the pace was taken off the ball by Scotland’s slower bowlers. They managed only three boundaries over 44 balls but nevertheless, there were ones and twos that kept the scoreboard ticking over and put on a run-a-ball partnership worth 42 which eventually gave Bangladesh a good platform.
The approach eventually got the better of both batters after they had gotten their eye in. Rani miscued a big hit to midwicket to fall for 29 while Mostary was out stumped for 32 a couple of overs later. These wickets sandwiched the run-out of Taj Nehar for a duck which pushed back Bangladesh’s bid to target a score in the range of 140.
The backend of the innings saw left-arm spinner Saskia Horley hauling three wickets, including two in an over. A couple of timely boundaries by Fahima Khatun pushed Bangladesh to 119 which eventually proved to be too much for Scotland. The application, however, was far from smooth. They had to do a lot of running to post their total of 119 for 9, with Shathi Rani’s 29 and 36 from Sobhana Mostary – both career-bests in the format – the most noteworthy contributions.
Rani’s dismissal – the second wicket – was the first of six to fall in 49 deliveries for just 50 runs. Off spinning allrounder Saskia Horley was the main beneficiary of this cascade, pocketing her best T20I figures of 3 for 13, having only been brought into the attack in the 18th over. But with Fahima Khatun’s 10 off 5 – the only batter to post a double-figure score at a strike rate greater than 100 – Bangladesh were at least able to ask Scotland to chase a run-a-ball score. It was at the start of the 12th over of Bangladesh’s innings that the charge was on.
At 60 for 1, the stage had been steadily built by Rani and Mostary, a union that began midway through the fifth over. The latter had scored the two boundaries on a stand that had reached 38 at the time, with the former having made use of the fielding restrictions in the first six overs to heave over mid-on and slash beyond point for her two. But when Rani skipped down the track to launch Katherine Fraser over mid-off, it was clear Bangladesh were looking to hit the game beyond Scotland’s reach.
Alas, Rani would fall four balls later, attempting to clear midwicket, before Mostary was stumped at the start of the 16th, having got herself in a funk that had already resulted in the run out of Taj Nehar. Scotland, to their credit, had kept a leash on matters, operating solely with spin 11 overs from the conclusion of the fifth, enticing errors in the process.
But the endeavour to find the ropes did at least keep Bangladesh’s innings moving, as they came within a run of doubling their score in the final eight overs, despite only striking four more boundaries.
Low-scoring matches mean that small contributions have a big impact. And few had a more profound effect on this match than the cameos from Fahima in all three facets.
Her brace of fours – both lifted over short fine – ensured Bangladesh found the 16 runs that would eventually be the difference between the two sides. After her first delivery of leg spin extracted extra bounce to find an edge from Saskia Horley, only to be grassed by Sultana behind the stumps, she slowed it down outside off to drag Horley out of her crease and allowed her captain to redeem herself with a stumping two balls later.
But perhaps her biggest moment came in the 15th over. With 50 required from 35 deliveries, Darcy Carter struck arguably the cleanest hit, crunching Moni for what most of the ball’s flight looked like being the first six of the match. Had that come to pass, the complexion of the final throes would have morphed, perhaps into the beginnings of an all-time Scotland victory.
Fahima killed that story dead, racing the ball to the fence, tracking it over her shoulder and taking a tumbling catch within a whisker of the sponge. In a match of seven drops, the 31-year-old was the exception – and exceptional.
Scotland finishes 16 runs short as Bangladesh celebrates skipper Nigar Sultana’s achievement with a 16 run win
Scotland could not get the momentum that Bangladesh managed early on in their innings. They lost Horley to the spin of Khatun early on in just the third over, but the bigger wicket came towards the end of the PowerPlay when skipper Kathryn Bryce was bowled off a ball that kept low. Having hit two boundaries already in her short innings, Scotland’s innings hinged on Kathryn’s prowess but the early jolt proved too much to recover from.
Her sister Sarah Bryce attempted to keep the chase going but found wickets tumbling at the other end to be a big hindrance. Ritu Moni struck twice in the middle overs, while confusion in calling resulted in the run out of Priyanaz Chatterji in between. These blows derailed Scotland’s attempts in keeping up with the run-rate. Sarah eventually remained unbeaten on 49 but it wasn’t enough to stop a special moment for Bangladesh.
It did not take long for the run rate to escalate, compounded by the loss of Kathryn Bryce – bowled by an in ducker from Marufa Afkter that kept low – to make it 31 for 2 at the end of the powerplay. Ritu Moni’s wily medium pacers kept Scotland in check, and she finished her four overs with 2 for 15, by which point Scotland required 38 from the final three overs.
Any hope of getting those rested on an exhausted Sarah Bryce. The keeper-batter should have been dismissed on 29, running past a delivery from Rabeya Khan and then somehow reclaiming her ground after Sultana had first missed the original take behind the stumps, and then botched the second attempt in front of them.
A further life came on 38 when her straight heave was dropped in the penultimate over by a diving Rabeya, who made amends three balls later to remove Katherine Fraser for Nahida Akter’s 100th T20I wicket. Aged 24 years and 215 days, the left-arm spinner is the second-youngest to reach the milestone, after England’s Sophie Ecclestone.
Sarah finished unbeaten on 49, though not before a third reprieve at cover. That she could only manage one boundary from her 52 deliveries spoke to a broader issue that left Scotland well short of their opponents.
The late switch of the tournament from Bangladesh to the UAE has thrown many a team’s plans into the unknown. Even the market leaders of women’s cricket – Australia, England and India – are working things on the fly, having never played an international here.
Learnings will be taken from anywhere and everywhere, and perhaps the first comes in the form of Scotland’s Sarah Bryce. Having crouched behind the stumps for 20 overs during the hottest part of the day, the keeper-batter then spent the next 20 scuttling between them in a valiant innings that left her visibly drained.
It spoke to her fitness and bloody-mindedness that she was still running twos by the end – four in the final five deliveries of the innings. That she should have been out three times came with a sense of cruelty – a dismissal would have at least given her some deserved respite as the chase circled the drain.
As one of Scotland’s major players, it highlighted the need for teams to protect their assets in these conditions. With two of Scotland’s three remaining matches occupying the same time slot, there may be cause to shift her down the order to better preserve her energy and talents.
It was more by accident than design that Kathryn Bryce took Scotland’s first wicket at a T20 World Cup. It should have belonged to Olivia Bell; the offspinner did not feature in the qualifiers but looked set to etch herself in the history books as a clothed flick from Murshida Khatun drifted towards midwicket. Rachel Slater’s drop was perhaps the worst of three in the first innings.
Halfway through the next over, Murshida was snared down the ground, Katherine Fraser taking a high catch moving to her right from mid-on. And with that, Kathryn, Scotland’s talismanic skipper, had another line for a CV that is spilling over into the second page. On Tuesday, she was showered with awards at the PCA do for her performances during the English season. Among her four gongs was becoming the first non-English cricketer to be named women’s Player of the Year.
That Kathryn was named the ICC’s associate women’s player of the decade for 2011 to 2020 despite making her T20I debut in 2018 says all that needs to be said about her standing, which has now been reinforced.
Presentations and Road Ahead
Nigar Sultana the winning skipper in their 100th T20I said : We have been waiting for this for a long time. This means a lot for us and everyone in the team. It was a kind of wicket where you need time to settle, Shathi and Mostary managed to do that. The conditions were pretty hot and we ran a lot of twos. Hopefully the wicket remains like this and our spinners will come into play.
We are trying to do something different (with our batting order), Taj came up and tried to hit some boundaries, but unfortunately she got out. We have the momentum, seeing the girls happy and smiling is the biggest inspiration for me.
Kathryn Bryce the losing skipper said : It is always going to be tough.. playing our first game in the T20 World Cup. Hopefully it gets better in the next couple of weeks. It was great to get out there and get some game time. We were sloppy in the field and in a tight game like this those are things that can cost you. Saskia was ready for that and was calm under pressure (bowling at the end).
Ritu Moni is Player of the Match for her 2 wickets said : It was a slow wicket and I tried to vary my pace. We have worked hard in the last one year and we have been waiting for this game, it is a very happy moment for me and my team mates. We assessed the conditions and just stuck to our bowling strengths.
Scotland’s chase never really got going. They were there and thereabouts but never threatened. Sarah Bryce held one end up but there was no impetus coming from the other. The batters struggled against the slow-paced nature of Bangladesh’s attack and fell at regular intervals.
During the mid-innings break we thought Bangladesh were 20 runs short but credit to their bowlers for keeping it tight, building scoreboard pressure and picking wickets. The fielding though was ordinary from both sides with plenty of catches being dropped but Bangladesh were slightly better and that was one of the key reasons for them winning this opening encounter. It might not have been the bestest of games entertainment wise but we are only getting started.