The debut for Bangladesh’s women may be an insignificantentry in the chronicles of cricket but should they go on to achievethe success that their male counterparts are struggling to reach
Nishi Narayanan02-May-2008
Bangladesh’s women get a chance to prove their worth © ACC
It has been less than a year since the Bangladesh women’s side wasformed and now they are preparing to take on India, Pakistan and SriLanka in the Asia Cup starting Friday. This may be an insignificantentry in the chronicles of cricket but should they go on to achievethe success that their male counterparts are struggling to reach, thisentry shall act as a reference to how it all began.Bangladesh qualified for the Asia Cup after winning the Asian CricketCouncil tournament in Malaysia last August. That was their firsttournament and Zafrul Ehsan, their coach, said he had no idea how theywould play when he took charge. “When I saw these girls I realisedthat even though they were older than the age-group players I had beentraining, as senior coach of the National Academy, they needed to betaught the basics. So I started training them as one would be trainfirst-timers and they were very enthusiastic.”But Ehsan wouldn’t have had a team to coach unless the BangladeshCricket Board (BCB) had set up a women’s committee. In March 2006,with the ICC pressuring each of its Full Members to start a women’swing, the BCB set up a committee and appointed Sahima Hossain, aformer MP, as the chairman. “In October that year, using eight lakhsgiven by the board, we organised a tournament involving 10 districts,Hossain said. “[Out of those] 31 girls, who scored 50 plus, or tookfive or more wickets, were picked for a four-month long national camp,beginning in April 2007.”The objective of that camp was to form a team that would participatein the ACC tournament. “Our aim was to get a good result,” Hossainsaid. “All other teams were new as well and no one had participated inan international tournament.” The budget for the tour was 19 lakhs.Bangladesh were clearly a level higher than the rest and they won thetournament without dropping a single game. The victory not only meanta place in the Asia Cup but also recognition from the people, themedia and officials back home. “A lot of people didn’t know there wasa national team for women,” Ehsan said. “We won convincingly andeveryone was surprised as to when these girls had learned the game andwon. We got a lot of praise, money, and appreciation.”Interest also grew among more women to play the sport. “At first thethought that girls would play cricket was shocking to people, Hossainsaid. “Now that is not the case. Previously I wouldn’t get enoughgirls but now I’m not short of girls for any tournament.” The budget,now raised to 35 lakhs a year, was divided between a schoolstournament, the district championship, a services tournament and acoaches training programme.If winning a tournament, which had teams from countries not known fortheir cricket, could create so many ripples in the women’s game inBangladesh, imagine what a credible performance at the Asia Cup coulddo? But success in Sri Lanka won’t be easy. “To be honest we haven’tgot any video footage of the opposition teams,” Ehsan admitted. “Idon’t have much idea of the teams. We don’t have a situation inBangladesh where we can have two women’s teams play each other. Wehave enough only for one team. We’ve played against some boys and wewill just try to achieve what is within our capability.” As a warm-upto the tournament, Bangladesh hosted Hong Kong for a week-long series.”We wanted India, Pakistan or Sri Lanka to come and play us but wecouldn’t get any side to agree,” Hossain said.Ehsan’s expectations from his side are not very high. “I don’t expectwe will be the best team in Asia. We want a place for our flag inAsia. Now that we’ve come this far, I want to show everyone we areworthy of playing at this level. We are arriving in world cricket andwill try in future everyone should recognise us. You may think this isjust talk but this is what we want to achieve.”
