Dhaka, July 12 (Just News): Bangladesh Women beat Scotland Women by 49 runs in the semi-final of the Women's World T20 Qualifier 2018 in Amstelveen on Thursday 12 July.
The victory ensured their presence in the ICC Women’s World T20 and set up a mouth-watering WT20Q final against Ireland, who beat Papua New Guinea in today’s earlier semi-final.
Bangladesh, who claimed a shock victory at the Women's T20 Asia Cup last month before winning a T20I series in Ireland, have continued their impressive recent form in this tournament, cruising through Group A with two eight-wicket victories and one seven-wicket win, ICC reports.
The Scots had been less convincing and displayed the same batting frailties today that were present in the earlier matches.
Bangladesh's knock was a well-contested innings, in which the favourites bossed the beginning and end only to be pegged back in the middle, which culminated in a above-par 126/5.
They had looked set for a few more early in their innings when Shamima Sultana and Ayasha Rahman added 51 for the first wicket at over seven an over. The former was particularly aggressive, striking three boundaries, an outlier for Bangladesh on a day when they relied mostly on hard running rather than rope-finding.
That partnership was ended by a calamitous run out – Shamima went for the second, Ayasha wasn’t keen, and by the time she realised the bails were off, as Scotland rallied to take 5/38 in eight overs through the middle of the innings. Priyanaz Chatterji, bowling with pace and maintaining a tight line outside off, accounted for two of those, both caught behind by Sarah Bryce.
Bryce was close to the star of the show, completing two stellar stumpings, the first off a wide way outside off, brought rapidly back into the stumps, and the second a reflex grab off a lifter from her sister Kathryn.
At 89/5 the game was in the balance, but Bangladesh swung the contest their way with a partnership of 32 between Nigar Sultana and Sanjida Islam. They helped their side take 29 from the last three overs, and boosted their total about 15 runs above-par.
Scotland’s reply started rather timidly, hitting just ten runs from the first five overs. Salma Khatun removed Rachel Scholes in the fourth over with one that started outside off and straightened to entice the nick through to the keeper.
Sarah Bryce hit two welcome boundaries in the sixth and seventh, but they finished that over still requiring 102 runs from 13 overs, with their current run-rate of 3.42 lagging comfortably behind the required rate of 7.84.
Bryce (31 off 44 deliveries), who had scored all of Scotland’s boundaries up until that point, was out stumped after Fahima Khatun floated one outside off.
The 14th over delivered two killer blows. Becky Glen got down on one knee to play a slog sweep to a Rumana Ahmed delivery, before failing to make contact with the bat and adjudged lbw. A few balls later Lorna Jack was run out with Scotland sitting rather precariously at 62/4.
The rot had set in and it showed no signs of abating when Bangladesh claimed a team hat-trick. Captain Kathryn Bryce (21) was bowled by Nahida Akter before she enticed the edge of Katie McGill’s blade, while Chatterji was bowled on the first ball of the next over by an effective Rumana googly.
At 65/7, enough damage had been done to ensure Bangladesh’s inclusion in the ICC Women’s World T20. Scotland added 11 more runs without loss as Bangladesh completed a resounding 49-run victory.
(Justnews/ys/2320hr)
