Wellington, Mar 25 (IANS): Bangladesh captain Nigar Sultana on Friday has rued the batting collapse which led to them losing their match to Australia in the ICC Women's Cricket World Cup.
On a windy and cold day at Basin Reserve, Bangladesh's batting struggled to get going with number six batter Lata Mondal top-scoring with 33 and Sharmin Akhter (24) being the other batter in the side to get above 20 runs.
"I think you can see how we actually fought in a lot of matches. It was close against West Indies and how we started the tournament against South Africa it was so close for us. Maybe we could play better here, but our batting unit collapsed and while the bowlers have done very well, if the batters can support them maybe we could have won two or three more matches here. But still we have one match to go, so I'm looking forward to bouncing back as a batting and bowling unit," said Sultana in the post-match virtual press conference.
Sultana was delighted for her team-mates Fargana Hoque and Rumana Ahmed achieving individual milestones in ODI cricket. Hoque became the first Bangladeshi woman to pass 1000 runs in ODIs with eight today in her 47th match while leg-spinner Ahmed achieved the feat of being the first women's bowler from Bangladesh to take 50 ODI wickets.
"Obviously I am proud to have them in the team and they have played for Bangladesh for a long time and I guess we have a long way to go. I'm always proud of Fargana Hoque and how she has batted through, it was brilliant and how she actually performs for the team every time."
"Rumana Ahmed is a brilliant all-rounder that we have in our team and I think we have more opportunities to get all these kinds of milestones. So, I'm hoping there will be 1000 more runs for Fargana Hoque and 50 more wickets for Rumana Ahmed."
Despite the loss, Sultana was proud of how Bangladesh caused a huge scare to Australia as they reduced the six-time champions to 70/5 in 17.4 overs before Beth Mooney and Annabel Sutherland took them home.
"The bowlers have done wonderfully well today and how they bowled, it was wonderful. It was great to be able to give Australia some tough time in the middle. So we tried to extend the game as long as we can and Salma (Khatun) bowled brilliantly today."