With the Bangladesh men’s national team facing Australia in the first T20I of the series, the women’s team takes on Australia in a far greater stage of the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup today.
Bangladesh will take on Australia at Headingley in Leeds in their second group-stage game, after beating the Netherlands by six wickets on Sunday.
Australia got off to a flying start as they thrashed the runner-up of the previous edition, South Africa.
Bangladesh have never beaten Australia in a women’s game, while losing all five matches in T20Is. Two of those were in the World Cups, in 2020 and 2023, respectively.
Juairiya Ferdous, who smashed a quickfire fifty against the Netherlands, sees the fixture as an exciting one.
‘It feels really special because I have always watched them on television, but I had never seen them in person before. Now I am going to play my first match against them, which is a great feeling and a very exciting opportunity,’ she said.
While Juairiya and Dilara put Bangladesh in command with their opening partnership, hiccups in the middle order put them under pressure before Sharmin Akter and Shorna Akter propelled them to the victory with five balls to spare.
Australia, on the other hand, bundled the South Africans out for only 107 runs, having scored 172-8.
With the new captain in Sophie Molineux, Australia seek to regain their hold in the tournament, which they won a record six times.
If anything, Bangladesh’s victory over Australia would be considered more than an upset. However, Australia remained as confident as ever.
‘They’ve got some hitters, which is cool, and I think probably their spinners, some crafty spinners,’ said Australian all-rounder Annabel Sutherland.
‘We’ve played a little bit against them the last couple of years and had a good series in Bangladesh against them, so we feel like we’ve got a good sense of their bowlers, and we review teams really, really well. So we’ve done that and feel like we’re confident coming into the game.’
