Bangladesh beat China by 86 runs

Bangladesh Women 108 all out (Ghosh 26, Chun Hua 4-27, Yong Juan 3-16) beat China Women 22 all out (Chakma 4-5, Sarkar 3-2)
Scorecard

Panna Ghosh bowls to China opener Sun Huan © ACC

Bangladesh's bowlers led their team to an 86-run win over China in the ACC women's tournament at Johor Bahru. Bangladesh dismissed China for 22 after scoring 108 batting first.

Bangladesh's batsmen hadn't impressed greatly in being bowled out for 108 against a pretty sound Chinese attack. Their 108 needs to be put into perspective by the fact that China dropped seven catches (all skiers) and bowled 21 wides. It could have been a lot less.

"Even with all that I was happy with the team," said Rashid Khan, China's coach. "They showed a lot of energy and application in the field. Bowling out a team like Bangladesh inside 30 overs is no small matter."

Bangladesh can bat. Up to now only the openers had been on show as they'd won both their preceding matches in the tournament by ten wickets, but in Panna Ghosh and Salma Khatun they have two exceedingly sound bats and the rest all showed enough to suggest that they're no strangers to the crease.

Bangladesh's coach Zafrul Ehsan was a little concerned by his team's batting performance, "They forgot to take singles and tried for too many big shots. I thought their running too, could have been a lot better," he said during the lunch interval, adding "But our bowlers will win it for us".

That they did. Panna Ghosh - the fastest bowler in the competition - was kept out but Shamima Akhter made the initial breakthrough in the fourth over and then the spinners came on. Sui Shuai was bowled between bat and pad by an off-break from Salma Khatun and then Champa Chakma's left-arm spin simply bamboozled the middle-order.

"We've never faced anything like her before," said China's captain Mei Chun Hua. Certainly China's best batsman Hu Ting Ting had never before seen any googly quite like the one which led to her second-ball stumping - a smart piece of work from Mina Khatun off Chakma.

Rain for an hour and a half merely delayed the inevitable and China's last five bats barely troubled the scorers. China's only batting consolation was that they scored more runs than overs faced.

A bowling machine or immersion in the wiles of Asian spinners is a must for China's batsmen, as for Bangladesh, their captain Tajkia Akhter says, "We truly believe, God willing, that we can win this competition. We're ready to move up to the next level."