Bangladesh womens cricket team have continued their breakout year by taking an unassailable 2-0 lead in their series against Ireland Women.

After Laura Delany won the toss and chose to bat, Salma Khatun gave the ball to Jahanara Alam for the opening over. Alam earned a full Powerplay from her captain, dismissing Clare Shillington and Gaby Lewis while only conceding ten runs in her first spell.

Perhaps the most impressive aspect of that performance was her ability to keep Shillington and Cecilia Joyce to two runs in her first over, as Shillington and Lewis had ensured a double-digit start off her bowling in game one, albeit at the expense of the former.

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Her ability to combine wicket-taking and a miserly economy rate in her Powerplay overs meant much pressure was transferred to Joyce, who kept her powder dry until the closing over of the Powerplay, scoring only five singles and conceding five dot balls.

Seizing on Khatun’s decision to replace herself in the attack with Khadija Tul Kubra, Joyce went 4, 2, 1, allowing Delaney to chew up three balls without having to risk her dismissal via hitting the ball in the air, as she did in the first match when Fahima Khatun spilled a hot chance off her own bowling at a similar stage in the match.

Holding an advantage but not a triumphant fist above her opponent, Salma Khatun decided to make a double change.

Nahida Akter, whose first over in the last match had been scored off so heavily by the Irish to such an extent that it had gone at two-and-half-runs per ball, saw the possibility of a repeat evaporate by the last ball of the over, as it had only seen four singles to that point, but the last delivery blew it out by double due to a Joyce boundary.

Both bowlers redeemed themselves in their second overs, both only conceding four runs from it.

Considering 134 had not been enough the day before, Ireland’s scoring pace of 4.77 runs per over for the first nine overs of the innings needed to be improved to be a realistic chance of victory.



While it was not without alarm, Joyce and Delany scored from every ball of the next over from Tul Kubra to put that run-rate up to 5.3. Rumana Ahmed came on and managed to keep the next over to five runs despite only managing to register one dot ball in its entirety, but Fahima Khatun couldn’t pull the same trick, as both batsmen scored a boundary in an over that eventually went for 11.

Delaney’s dismissal in the next over brought Isobel Joyce out to bat with her sister, who was by this time starting to dominate, standing on 38 off 30. But that didn’t mean she was infallible. Next over, she ran Isobel out, inviting a comparison with Niall O’Brien running his brother Kevin out in Guyana at the 2007 World Cup.

In fairness, Cecilia Joyce dominated the next over entirely off her own bat, with ten runs off that over not only bringing up her half-century, but also putting Ireland’s run rate above six for the first time in the innings (6.06, to be precise) with five overs remaining.

In those overs, wickets fell and runs scored, but there was a certain fascination in seeing the run rate at the end of each over, the way someone who likes the stock market looks at the prices going up and down. Here’s how it went for the last five overs:

5.81. 6.11. 5.88. 5.84. 6.20.

It was another number that was most important in Bangladesh’s pursuit of 125: 75. The total of the second-wicket partnership between Shamima Sultana and Forgana Hoque, it was a calm display that took only 10.4 overs.

Coming at the end of the third over to replace Ayasha Rahman, Hoque started slowly but eventually managed to reach that three-figure strike rate on a consistent basis in the over that Sultana’s dismissal saw the end of the partnership.

Sultana’s half-century saw a pleasing amount of contrasts: a blizzard of boundaries in the last over of the Powerplay, punishing the Irish captain for dropping on the last ball of the previous over, a diet of singles and dot balls in the three overs after that, before an increase in the scoring rate for the four and a half overs for her remaining time at the crease.



It was noticeable that Hoque scored slower in what little time she had at the crease – two overs – after Sultana was dismissed. When she followed her batting partner off the field, Bangladesh were 3-104 off 15.3, never a position they were likely to lose from.

Ireland tried hard to pip them – three wickets, including Fahima Khatun’s first failure as a late overs batter for a while, and keeping it tight enough to get it to a final over – but they couldn’t do it.

Bangladesh needed six runs to win from the final over; Sanjida Islam needed merely one ball score all of them. It was her one significant act for the day, but it was a symbolic way for the game to end. Bangladesh Women are hitting sixes and winning series. One more match in Ireland, then they need to go to the Netherlands and keep playing well enough to qualify for the World T20 in the West Indies.