Ayasha, Rumana give Bangladesh 1-0 lead

Bangladesh Women 125 for 3 (Ayasha 50, Sharmin 35, Fargana 32*) beat Zimbabwe Women 90 for 8 (Mayers 29, Rumana 3-11) by 35 runs
Scorecard and ball-by-ball details

A fifty from opener Ayasha Rahman and three wickets from legspinner Rumana Ahmed sealed a 35-run win for Bangladesh Women against Zimbabwe Women in the first T20 in Cox's Bazar. Bangladesh put on 125 for 3 helped by their top three batsmen and then restricted the visitors to 90 for 8.

Put in to bat, Bangladesh saw an opening stand of 76 in 13.4 overs between Ayasha and Sharmin Akhter before their innings saw three run-outs. Sharmin was the first one to fall for a 45-ball 35 before Fargana Hoque joined Ayasha. The duo upped the run rate by scoring 49 runs off 37 balls to take them to 125. Ayasha (50) and Ritu Moni were then run out on the last two balls of the innings, and Fargana was unbeaten on 32 off 21.

Zimbabwe started losing wickets from the fifth over onwards after a slow start. Rumana dismissed the openers in consecutive overs before Sharne Mayers and Pellagia Mujaji stalled the fall of wickets for 6.4 overs but scored only 29 runs together. Once that stand was also broken by a run out, in the 14th over, Zimbabwe started losing wickets in a heap. Rumana struck again to finish with 3 for 11 from four overs and the visitors saw their last four wickets fall for ten runs in 12 balls as the asking rate shot over 16 runs per over.