Nigar Sultana is optimistic that the Bangladesh women’s team will acquire more recognition in her country as a result of the 1-1 result in the ODI series against India.
After the third and final game in Dhaka ended in a stalemate, Nigar commented, “We are quite happy with the overall outcome.” “If we had won the series, we would have been quite thrilled. I believe that we have made good progress. Many individuals [at home] were unaware of the Bangladeshi team’s roster. Now everyone will know who Nahida [Akter], Pinky [Fargana Hoque], and Marufa [Akter] are. This, in my opinion, is already a success. The cricket board’s kind remarks regarding us were pleasant. They showed up to watch our bouts. The audience was on our side. The press is behind us.
Fargana, who became the first Bangladeshi woman to make a century in women’s ODIs, received special accolades from Nigar. We played excellent batting. It was definitely a plus, said Nigar. Pinky Apu batted brilliantly. held one end up. Our goal for today was to bat the complete 50 overs after we failed to do so in the last game.
Fargana batted at No. 3 in the first two ODIs, but head coach Hashan Tillakaratne told her the previous night that she would be opening the batting in the last match. By scoring 107, the first ODI century by a Bangladeshi woman, she returned the favour and became the first female recipient of the Player-of-the-Series title in ODIs.
“I always start at the plate. Although I started at No. 3, the head coach instructed me yesterday to psychologically get ready to start the innings, according to Fargana. “I entered the wicket with a positive attitude. I was able to adapt to the swing. I had faith in myself. Four or five of our batters are capable of tallying significant totals. When competing against powerful teams, you must be extremely skilled. I had faith in my abilities and method.
“I wanted to build off my strong start. We will continue using the same procedure because we are seeing sluggish progress. I loved that I made an effort to bat long, and it was successful. I want to get better at batting because I sometimes make mistakes.
In the 1990s, were there any nerves?
“At this stage, I hadn’t achieved a perfect score, but I observed others doing so. I witnessed Mushfiq [Mushfiqur Rahim] bhai earn a perfect score. I recently witnessed [Najmul Hasan] Shanto bhai score two hundreds. I observed how they passed the interim,” she remarked. “I didn’t plan on going for a hundred here, but I did plan on batting each ball according to its worth.
“When I hit 96, I started to get nervous. I practised some deliveries. But I reminded myself that I must bat all the way through if I want to be a good batter. When I was forced to leave the last game on 47, my buddies were disappointed. I made an effort to follow the procedure, which enabled me to receive a high score.
Nigar was pleased with how the game went, with India going from 160 for 3 to 191 for 5 to 225 all out, but she felt that her team should have bowled better to end it much earlier.
If we had bowled better, I believe we could have won the game, Nigar stated. “Then, it wouldn’t have progressed this far. After a subpar ball powerplay, we recovered admirably. We may have corrected some of the errors from the second game, in my opinion. This series ought to have been over after the second game. We can apply many of the lessons from this series in the future.
Nothing could be more gratifying than performing well against a top opponent. We’ve gained momentum from this performance. We get positive feelings as we break. We didn’t lose because we tied the game. It encourages everyone.
