Hosts ready, but team?

The Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) is ready to host the biggest women’s tournament in the country’s history.  The ICC Women’s World Cup Qualifiers will start from November 14, comprising of ten teams and the matches will be held across four different venues. The top four teams from the tournament will qualify to join India, Australia, New Zealand and England in the ICC Women’s World Cup 2013 to be held in India.
South Africa, Sri Lanka, The Netherlands, USA, West Indies and Ireland have already arrived in the capital while Japan, Pakistan and Zimbabwe were expected to have arrived last night.
Hosts Bangladesh find themselves in Group B alongside West Indies, Pakistan, Ireland and Japan while Group A consists of South Africa, Sri Lanka, The Netherlands, Zimbabwe and USA.
A pre-tournament press conference was held at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium (SBNS) in Mirpur yesterday where the local organisers promised a successful tournament.
The hosts will embark on another journey in hosting international sporting events and the BCB President A.H.M. Mustafa Kamal, who was present at the press conference, assured everyone that the BCB is leaving no stone unturned in ensuring that it will be a successful one. But at the same time he is weary of making any comparisons to the razzmatazz of the ICC Cricket World Cup held earlier this year in which Bangladesh were co-hosts and exhibited an amazing opening ceremony.
With little hype surrounding the event the BCB president was nonetheless adamant that the tournament should be held in keeping with all international standards and ICC rules and regulations and hoped that people come and see the games. With there being no doubts about the facilities at SBNS and the Fatullah stadium, the other two of venues for the tournament, the BKSP 2 and 3 grounds, have been upgraded to provide dressing rooms for the teams,
“Entry into the stadiums for people who are interested in watching the games will be free of cost and I encourage you all to come and see the matches,” the BCB President added.
The BCB recently became serious about women’s cricket in Bangladesh and hired Indian coach Mamatha Maben for the home team. A salary system has also been introduced for the national squad and the BCB plans on opening an academy specifically for the development of women’s cricket.
On the flipside, the lack of any hype may be a blessing in disguise with the hosts Bangladesh losing both their warm up matches to one of the tournament favourites Sri Lanka, being rolled over for less than 150 runs in both games. But the BCB President is still optimistic about the team’s chances. “We are looking to win all the matches,” he said, perhaps tongue in cheek.
But in reality, based on current form Bangladesh are only expected to win their match against Japan. That would be a far cry from rubbing shoulders with the top four teams in the tournament and as a result be able to compete in the ICC Women’s World Cup 2013 in India or even be in the top six, which would grant them ODI status.
Still the BCB hopes that this tournament will raise public awareness and interest about women’s cricket and be the start of bigger and better things for the Bangladesh women’s team in the near future.