Whenever we play, we play to win: Nahida

WOMEN'S WORLD CUP

Published : Monday, 13 October, 2025 at 2:51 PM Count : 10

After a close defeat to England and a big margin defeat to New Zealand, Bangladesh women’s cricket team will look for a comeback against South Africa in their fourth match of the ongoing ICC Women’s World Cup.

The match will kick off at 3:30 PM Bangladesh Standard Time at the Dr. Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy ACA-VDCA Cricket Stadium, in Visakhapatnam on Monday.

Bangladesh – after making a winning start in the tournament by beating Pakistan by seven wickets – lost to England by a narrow margin of 4 wickets and then suffered a heavy 100-run defeat to England on Friday. Currently, they are sixth in the point table of the eight team tournament, whereas South Africa are fourth. South Africa suffered a 10-wicket lose to England in the first match after getting bowled out for 69 only, but then bounced back with two important wins against New Zealand and India.

Bangladesh slow left-arm orthodox bowler Nahida Akter has said that the team will look for a win in this important clash, but emphasised on the team’s batting condition to improve.

“We’re confident. Whenever we play, we play to win, no one comes here to lose. However, we collapsed in batting in the previous matches, but we’re hopeful it’ll improve tomorrow,” Nahida said in the pre-match press conference on Sunday. “I agree our batting collapsed. We’ve already discussed it with our batting coaches and among the players. We’ve been working on those weaknesses, and hopefully the batters will come back in the next match.”

In the second match, Bangladesh scored only 178 batting first against England. In the third match, chasing 228, the Tigresses bundled out for 127 only.

Bangladesh captain Nigar Sultana Joty’s form is a worrying sign for the team, as the wicketkeeper-batter scored only 33 runs in the last 5 matches she played, and scored only 27 in the three innings of the ongoing World Cup. But Nahida doesn’t think that the captain’s poor form affects the team.

“I don’t see it that way. We have other capable batters in the team. And our captain, Joty, always plays in a way that inspires us. I believe she’ll do better from the next match, Inshallah,” she said.

Bangladesh pacer Marufa Akter has caught the eyes with her excellent performance with the ball and ability to inswing the ball in the early overs. When asked about adding a pacer (left arm pacer Fariha Islam Trisna or right arm medium pacer Ritu Moni to the side alongside Marufa, Nahida pushed the ball to the team management’s court.

“It’s still hard to say whether we’ll play with one or two pacers. It depends on the wicket behaviour and conditions. The management will discuss it tomorrow and decide whether to go with more pacers or spinners,” she said.

South Africa’s right-arm fast-medium bowler Tumi Sekhukhune showed her respect to Bangladesh, saying that the Bangladeshi spinners can be tough to handle for the South African batters.

“It’s going to be a very tough game for us with Bangladesh. We know that they're going to come with much more slow bowlers, typically the spinners, and I think we said as a team that you want to take it one step at a time, one ball at a time, but we just want to, keep ticking all the boxes that we know we didn't do well in the previous games. So, if we do that, then hopefully we come on the better side,” she said.

With three more matches coming up after this match, Bangladesh will extremely need a victory to stay alive in the tournament.

FP/MI