Bangladesh women's A team set to tour India for a limited overs series

The BCCI has planned a limited overs ‘A’ series against Bangladesh eves, starting next month. The Tigresses will play a series of five-unofficial ODIs and three T20s. It will be an experiment to test the bench strength of the Indian side, as the likes of Jhulan Goswami and Mithali Raj are at the fag end of their respective careers. Some of the experienced campaigners may well play in the upcoming games.

Post the memorable World Cup outing in England this year, the women’s team have received a lot of accolades for their impressive show and they will be eager to continue with their job. The upcoming series promises to be an interesting one and action is pretty much guaranteed.

Bangladesh A team will play five unofficial One Day Internationals and three T20 Internationals. This will give the selectors a chance to test the bench strength and how prepared the next batch is after Mithali Raj, Jhulan Goswami and Harmanpreet Kaur,” a senior BCCI official told PTI today.

Expectations are high: Arothe

Speaking to Gulf News on how has been the response from the cricket fans in India, Tushar Arothe, the coach of the Indian women’s team said: “Expectations of the team are pretty high now. There is a lot more pressure. There is no fun without any pressure. So I like to take the challenge but at the same time I will not take away the credit from the girls what they did during the World Cup.”

Before the World Cup we went to South Africa where the girls did very well,” said Arothe, who transformed the team into a winning unit. “We won the tournament there beating South Africa. So I was pretty confident that if we put runs on the board, we will definitely do well in the World Cup.”

“We are getting excellent support from BCCI [Board of Control for Cricket in India], they are promoting women’s cricket in a big way,” he said. “They have started the India ‘A’ team, which is the bench strength for the senior team. Bangladesh are coming to India to play against ‘A’ team soon. In January India will be in South Africa for the World Championship and then in March-April, the Australia and England teams are coming to India. So there is going to be a lot of women’s cricket.