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Nigar Sultana Joty was crying her heart out. The Bangladesh captain, playing in her 100th T20I—the first female player to do so from the country—finally got the taste of a victory in a T20 World Cup game in her 17th attempt as her team beat newcomers Scotland on the opening day of this year’s edition at Sharjah on Thursday. 

It was a scrappy win by a margin of 16 runs, where Bangladesh didn’t gain the momentum in the batting after building a solid foundation in the first phase of the game.

In the field, they were sloppy, including the captain herself, who is the wicketkeeper. But the bowlers did the job to bring joy and emotion, which Joty described as something that would make a ‘great impact in the women’s cricket in Bangladesh’. 

Before leaving the country for the World Cup, Joty told the reporters that their primary goal would be to end the 10-year winless streak in the tournament. 

Having done that, now the focus will be on today’s match, where they face the four-time finalist and champion of the first edition, England. 

Joty appeared optimistic that they would carry the momentum into the next one.

‘It’s always been important when you play your first game in a tournament, because you always get to get the momentum that you want to carry forward for the tournament,’ she said after the Scotland game.

‘But we still want to go match by match. Definitely, now we are going to play against England—how we attack them or how we should play against them. So right now, we are focussing on what we are going to do.’

The captain also knows in what areas they need to improve.

‘We’re just trying to execute our game plan. And definitely I missed two chances, so I need to work on some things. So, we have some time, and we will definitely work on that. And we’ll take all the positives from this game, and we’ll try to implement it in the next game.’

England are an unfamiliar opponent for Bangladesh. This will be only their fourth meeting, with the previous three taking place in the World Cup, which Bangladesh have lost on each occasion.

Sobhana Mostaty, who top scored for Bangladesh with 36 from 38 against Scotland, said that the win boosted their confidence level. She also thinks a win over the English will boost their chance of reaching the semi-finals. 

‘The unity and the confidence are high since our first victory. We will face England after a long time in the [T20] World Cup, though we played a match against them in the last year’s ODI World Cup. We hope that we will give our full effort. We will try to give our all in the batting, the bowling, and the fielding.’ 

Ritu Moni, the player of the match against Scotland, was also hopeful.

 ‘It feels great [to get a win]. Our preparation was good. Everyone was spirited after winning the warm-up match against Pakistan. We are hoping for something against England too,’ said the all-rounder.

In Group B, Bangladesh will play two more matches in Sharjah before the last match against South Africa in Dubai. 

This World Cup was supposed to be held in Bangladesh, but then it was moved to the UAE. Bangladesh, though, are hopeful they will get the support from the local crowd as they got in the first match. 

‹Initially it was very heartbreaking because we always bear in mind that we are going to play in front of our home crowd. But still, the people who came here today were brilliant. Quite a few people who actually supported Bangladesh were here,’ said Joty.

The match against England will start at 8:00pm and Nagorik TV will televise the game live.