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Bangladesh women’s cricket team will be looking to utilise the home advantage over their Irish counterparts as the first of the three-match one-day international series starts at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium today. 

The series is under the ICC women’s championship, and it is important for Bangladesh to grab six points to ensure direct qualification in the next year’s World Cup in India. 

However, Ireland, who have never toured Bangladesh for a bilateral series before, beat Sri Lanka 2-1 in August and then registered their first win over England in 23 years. 

Bangladesh captain Nigar Sultana Joty was little concerned about Ireland’s recent success but believed they would face new difficulties in Bangladesh as they have never played here before. 

‘They [Ireland] don’t have any experience in playing here; their win-loss ratio is low’, Joty told reporters in the pre-series press conference on Tuesday. 

‘Our winning rate is high against them. And we will play at home. Whoever plays at home are the strongest.’ 

Bangladesh last played in an ODI series in March, when they were swept away by Australia. But Joty wants to take the positives from the series before that, when they beat Pakistan and won matches against South Africa and India. 

‘Barring Australia, we’ve played well in recent times. Ireland might have had good results recently, but those were at their home. No opponent should be taken lightly, but as we need six points, this series is very important for us. Every match will be valuable, and we will try to dominate’, she said. 

‘Ireland are below our ranking. If we cannot dominate them, then how will we fight neck-to-neck against the big teams?’ Joty added.

But Joty believes that Bangladesh will have to put up a better batting display in the series. 

‘Batting has been a visible problem for us. The thing is, we haven’t been scoring in the top order. So it becomes difficult to tackle that from the middle order. In modern cricket, you’ll never get the chance to recover from that.’ 

Ireland, on the other hand, will have to face the spin threat of Bangladesh in the expected slow and low wicket of Mirpur. 

‘I think it’s just about adapting to the conditions that we face tomorrow [today]’, Irish captain Gaby Lewis said.

‘We’ve trained in the nets, and we’ve been training really well out here, but you never know a pitch can be out in the middle. So I think it’s just about being focused and clinical.’