Bangladesh Women set to travel to Zimbabwe for an ODI series

Bangladesh will tour Zimbabwe for a three-match ODI series in November. Incidentally, this also will be the first instance of the team returning to action after almost a gap of 18 months. Bangladesh were last seen playing the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup in February 2020. After that COVID-19 pandemic put a full stop to cricketing activates all over the world.

Although their Men counterparts returned to action, women players had to resort to training in the practice and just an emerging nation series against South Africa earlier in April this year. But now, the Bangladesh team will finally get into some much-needed top-flight cricket.  This series will also be a good preparation time for them for the upcoming Women’s ODI World Cup Qualifier set to be played in the African nation after the completion of the three-match ODI series.

"The Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) and Zimbabwe Cricket have had talks regarding this series and it was decided our women's team will be playing three ODIs against Zimbabwe ahead of the World Cup Qualifier," Shafiul Alam Chowdhury Nadel, the head of BCB's women cricket wing told ESPNCricinfo.

"We have stuck to just the ODI matches for the bilateral series because the qualifier are in the one-day format, and it will serve as an important preparatory exercise for our team in terms of getting match time before the qualifier."

Bangladesh have gradually improved on their performances under the brilliant leadership of Salma Khatun. The team also performed well in the T20 World Cup and almost came close to upsetting New Zealand. Although COVID-19 and other socio-cultural practices effectively halted their steady progress, the ODI series against Zimbabwe gives them a chance to build on the form again.