Nigar Sultana rues lack of preparation for Bangladesh's early WWC exit

Nigar Sultana Joty, Bangladesh women's team skipper, insisted that if they want to achieve success on the global stage, they need long-term preparation, as that would ensure improved performances in World Cups.

Bangladesh, who won only one of their seven games and finished seventh out of eight teams, returned home on Tuesday.

The Bangladesh Cricket Board failed to arrange any international matches for the women's team in the five months leading up to the World Cup. Their last appearance came in the World Cup Qualifiers in April, before the main event in September-October. During that gap, their preparation was limited to training sessions and practice games against an Under-15 boys' team.

"When you're going to play a World Cup, you can't just start preparation six months before. Other teams start their preparation two years ahead of the World Cup. So, we also have to move in that direction," Nigar told reporters at the airport upon arrival from the global event.

"In this World Cup, if we had played a bit more mature cricket, maybe we wouldn't be returning today - maybe we'd be playing in the semifinals. To overcome these things, players especially need to grow mentally a lot more. And our preparation should start right away, with a clear aim for what we want to achieve in the next World Cup," she said.

"There's always a gap when you haven't played international matches. At this level, knowing how to overcome tough situations or perform under pressure - how to pull the team out of trouble - we still lack that experience. But to be honest, we senior players had more responsibility because we can't really put that pressure on the younger ones," she added.

Nigar said that the missed opportunities in close encounters against England, South Africa, and Sri Lanka, following their opening win over Pakistan, proved costly.

"I think in many matches we had chances to win - there were opportunities. But we couldn't grab them. As a team, I'd say that's a failure on our part," she said.

"Everyone had expectations. Because of the way we started the tournament, I'd still say there were two or three close games that were actually in our favour. But we couldn't close them out," she said, adding that she must take responsibility for failing to lead from the front with the bat.

"First of all, personally, I'll say I really couldn't perform with my batting. My off-form actually affected the team a lot. Because when the top-order batters make runs, it creates a base - and I like to bat differently. So in that sense, I couldn't give that input to the team. That's a big shortcoming, I'd say," she admitted.

Nigar also dismissed speculation surrounding her post-match interaction with India skipper Harmanpreet Kaur, saying the incident was unnecessarily exaggerated on social media.

The handshake between the two captains became a topic of discussion after some viewers interpreted the moment as strained, though Nigar disagreed.

"No, no - nothing like that happened (that we didn't shake hands or anything). What happens naturally is that before the toss, we talk a lot. When the match referee comes and checks our team lists, Harman and I have a conversation - and the handshake, that's a separate matter," said Nigar.

"I'll just say, we talked as much as necessary, and after the match, we did shake hands. So this thing was actually publicized way too much. It wasn't any big issue," she concluded.