The Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) has taken a historic decision to launch a three-day tournament for women in the country. This is a landmark decision by the board as this will be the first three-day tournament for women in Bangladesh.
Women’s Bangladesh Cricket League (WBCL) will start on 21 December 2024. The tournament will be played on two courts in Rajshahi city. BCB also announced the captains of all the teams participating in the tournament.
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Why did Bangladesh start WBCL?
BCB is believed to have decided to launch the tournament to build the country’s first women’s test team. The board has yet to decide on a deadline to finalize the team.
BCB head of women’s cricket Habibul Bashar explained the reason for the tournament and urged women to be ready for red ball cricket. Bashar also announced that the board will apply for first-class status.
“We have to be ready for red-ball cricket. Most of our women cricketers haven’t seen the red ball at all. It’s all about white-ball cricket for them because all our domestic cricket is white-ball. They’ve only played two red-ball games, maybe we’ll apply for first-class status because it’s it has everything you need for that type of cricket,” Bashar was quoted as saying by ESPNCricinfo.
Habibul Bashar welcomes the initiative of BCB
Habibul Bashar also hailed the BCB for this landmark decision and claimed that it will help women’s cricket in Bangladesh. She also revealed that the tournament should start sometime and it is a great thing for women’s cricket in the country.
“It’s a very good initiative from the BCB. The challenge was to start it, so we have some time this month. We have a tour of the West Indies coming up. We had to start the tournament. We won’t have time until June next year,” he added.
The former Bangladesh captain further mentioned that the actual plan was to give the players more time to prepare for the West Indies series. The reason for this is that there will be 4 matches in December. The remaining matches will be held in January.
Who will be the captains?
Four teams will participate in the WBCL and all these teams are grouped into four different regions – North, South, East and West. BCB also announced the captains for the respective regions.
The tournament will be led by Nigar Sultana, Fahima Khatun, Rabeya Khan and Sobhana Mostary. It is likely to help Bangladesh develop a good women’s Test team in the future.
This is the second edition of the WBCL after the 2023 tournament in a two-day format. Among all countries, India has a tournament called the Inter-Zonal Multiday Trophy for Senior Women. Australia has also started three-day test matches for red ball cricket.
Bangladesh received Full Member status in women’s cricket in 2021. Afghanistan and Zimbabwe were the other two teams to gain full membership during that period. Afghanistan still does not have a women’s national team due to political reasons.
