If results go as predicted, Bangladesh could all but seal the title before that final showdown, needing only a draw against Nepal on the last matchday.
Midfielder Shanti Mardi scored a hattrick while Munki Akter added one as Bangladesh cruised to a 4-1 victory over Bhutan in their SAFF U-20 Women’s Championship fixture inside the Bashundhara Residential Area on Tuesday, consolidating the top-spot in the four-team competition with a third win in three matches.
The 24-year-old left-arm spinner played a vital role in helping the Tigresses clinch one of the two World Cup spots, taking six wickets across the six-team tournament.
Bangladesh will go up against Hayley Matthews’ West Indies on 17th April next at the tournament.
Led by captain Nigar Sultana Joty, the 15-member squad are gearing up for a do-or-die battle against West Indies, Ireland, Thailand, Scotland, and hosts Pakistan.
Basketball and football are projected to remain as the two highest revenue-generating sports in 2025 at 44% and 35%, respectively.
Showcasing a spirited display, Nigar Sultana Joty’s team put aside all the pre-series fears.
While Ireland had recently beat England and Sri Lanka, the hosts are winless this year and last played a 50-over match in March.
For the first time, BCB has been able to secure a deal for title sponsorship and ground rights for a home women’s series.
In a repeat of the 2023 semi-final, England got their revenge with an all-round team display to chase down 125 with four balls remaining.
The momentum for women's cricket in Bangladesh would have had a far bigger boost had they been staging the event as planned.
"In abroad, they give women's sports the same amount of importance as men's sports. I don't know if the men's and women's sports are getting the same importance, but the situation has improved a lot."
The FIFA Women's World Cup final, which England lost 1-0 to Spain at Stadium Australia, was 2023's most-watched women's sport event on TV with 38.4 million viewing hours.
A record 46.7 million viewers in Britain tuned in to watch women's sport on TV in 2023, eclipsing 2019's mark by almost a million, according to research published by the Women's Sport Trust on Tuesday.
Let’s revisit the cream of the crop from a stellar year.
Hosts Bangladesh tasted their first defeat in the ongoing SAFF U-17 Women’s Championship when the girls in red and green suffered a 3-0 defeat to their Russian counterparts at the Shaheed Birshreshtha Mostafa Kamal Stadium on Wednesday.
In conversation with Ashreen Mridha, founder of Deshi Ballers and former shooting guard of the national women’s basketball team, Naziba Basher of The Daily Star delves into some of the deeper questions of why the women are still made to lag behind.
The primary barriers girls face in regards to sports come from the families themselves.
