Bangladesh marked their ICC Under-19 Women Cricket World Cup campaign on a high note, spoiling all endeavors of favorites Australia women, with a seven-wicket victory on Saturday at Benoni, South Africa.
Bangladesh girls demonstrating better performance in both bowling and batting grabbed the big win against the formidable Australian side.
Marufa Akter, Disha Biswas, Dipa Khatun and Rabeya Khan led the foundation of Bangladesh win when they bowled superbly to restrict their Australian counterparts to 130 runs in the stipulated 20 overs after being sent to bowl first.
In reply to a moderate target, Bangladesh women reached comfortably scoring 132 runs losing only three wickets with two overs to play.
Disha Biswas made an early strike by taking two wickets when the Australian scorecard showed only 22 runs on the board.
Disha made the first breakthrough with taking the wicket of opener Kate Pelle for six with the scoreboard reading only seven runs when she (Disha) clean bowled to send off the other opener Paris Bowdler for seven with the Australia side on 22 runs.
Claire Moore, another top order batter was shining light under-pressure accompanied by Ella Hayward at the middle, but Rabeya Khan and Marufa Akter struck in quick succession to halt the middle-order duo.
Claire Moore looked very steady with her sensible batting when she mustered the team highest 52 off 51 balls when her partner Ella Hayward scored the second highest 35 runs from 39 deliveries.
Disa Biswas and Marufa Akter claimed two wickets each when Rabeya picked up one but Dipa Khatun, who could not take any wicket, conceded only 16 runs in her four overs spell.
Bangladesh, replying to a modest target also saw an early debacle losing their opener when Mishty Shaha went for a duck facing the first ball of the innings.
But Afifa Prottasa and one down Dilara Akter kept their cool to rebuild the innings with scoring 66 runs in 10 overs.But the partnership departed in quick succession when they left the crease in a span of five runs.
Prottasa got out for 22 off 24 balls when Dilara scored 40 runs from 42 balls when Ainsworth claimed both the wickets and Allen successfully caught both the wickets.
Dilara featured her valuable 42 runs innings with seven boundaries when Prottasa hit two fours.
The match turned into a pulsating one when Bangladesh women needed 53 runs from the last five overs and 15 runs from the last three overs.
But Sorna Akter and Sumaiya Akter, who took the responsibility after the departure of Afifa Prottasa and Dilara Akter, confidently did their job with sailing the team to winning target scoring 61 runs from nine overs with two overs to spare of the 20 overs match.
