Tigresses hit the lowest ebb

Bangladesh Women's team ended a forgettable Women's T20 Asia Cup campaign with a punishing seven-wicket defeat against their Sri Lankan counterparts in Bangkok yesterday.

Sent into bat, the Tigresses scored a below-par 93-3 in their share of 20 overs at the Asian Institute of Technology ground. Sanjida Islam scored the highest, 35 while Shaila Sharmin chipped in with an unbeaten 25. But a run-rate of just over 4.5 has never been defendable in the slam-bang T20 format and so the Lankans raced to 97-3 with six balls to spare with Chamira Jayangani finishing the chase in style, hitting an unbeaten 39 off 25 balls that contained three fours and two sixes.

Interestingly, it was Bangladesh's first defeat against the Islanders after two identical wins by three runs – the first one in the 2012 Asia Cup and the second in the Women's World T20 in 2014.

The defeat completed a listless showing by the Tigresses in an international T20 competition despite the fact that they are more experienced and have more resources at hand with all the facilities available to them. It was in this tournament their batting never came up to the mark. They were embarrassingly bowled out for 45 against Pakistan, which was their lowest T20 score, and crashed out to India for 54 runs a few days later.

They however won their two insignificant matches against lowly Nepal and hosts Thailand. But the revamped set up that included a high-profile English coach and a new captain even failed to match the standard set by a team that was not even in the board's payroll a couple of years ago.

The Bangladesh women's team, who are in their fourth year since making their T20 debut with a spectacular victory against Ireland in 2012, can easily consider this Asia Cup as their worst in every aspect.