Historic first women's three-day tournament set to be launched in Bangladesh

The Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) has taken a historic decision to launch a three-day tournament in the country for women. It is a landmark decision from the board as this will be Bangladesh's first-ever three-day tournament for women.

The Women's Bangladesh Cricket League (WBCL) is set to begin on December 21, 2024. The tournament will be played at two venues in the city of Rajshahi. The BCB has also announced the captains of all the teams playing in the tournament.

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Why did Bangladesh start WBCL?

It is believed that the BCB has decided to start the tournament to build the country's first-ever Test team for women. The board has yet to decide on a deadline to finalize the team.

BCB's head of women's cricket Habibul Bashar revealed the reason for starting the tournament and called for the readiness in red-ball cricket for women. Bashar also revealed that the board will also be applying for a first-class status.

"We have to be ready in red-ball cricket. Most of our female cricketers haven't seen the red ball at all. It is all about white-ball cricket for them, as all our domestic cricket is with the white ball. They have only played two red-ball games, maybe. We will apply for first-class status as we have all that's needed for this type of cricket," Bashar was quoted as saying by ESPNCricinfo.

Habibul Bashar hails BCB's initiative

Habibul Bashar also hailed the BCB for this landmark decision and claimed that it will help women's cricket in Bangladesh. He also revealed that the tournament needed to be started at some point and it's a great thing for women's cricket in the country.

"It is a very good initiative from the BCB. The challenge was to start it, so we got a bit of time this month. We have the West Indies tour coming up. We needed to start the tournament. We won't have time until June next year," he added.

The former Bangladesh captain further mentioned that the actual plan was to give the players for the West Indies series more time to prepare. It is the reason that four matches will take place in December. The remaining matches will be held in January.

Who will be the captains?

Four teams will participate in the WBCL and all those teams have been grouped with regions from four different directions - North, South, East, and West. The captains for the respective regions have been also announced by the BCB.

Nigar Sultana, Fahima Khatun, Rabeya Kha,n and Sobhana Mostary will lead the four sides in the tournament. It is likely to help Bangladesh prepare a good women's Test team in the future.

This is the second edition of the WBCL after the tournament was played in a two-day format in 2023. Among all the countries, India have a tournament called the Senior Women's Inter Zonal Multi-Day Trophy. Australia have also started three-day trial matches for red-ball cricket.

Bangladesh received the Full Member status in women's cricket in the year 2021. Afghanistan and Zimbabwe are the other two teams to receive a full member status during that period. Afghanistan is yet to have a women's national team due to political reasons in the country.