Women's cricket team off to Ireland

Bangladesh National Women's Cricket team left the capital for Ireland on Monday to play a three-match T20 series against Irish women ahead of the next month's Women's World T20 Qualifier in the Netherlands, reports UNB.

Salma Khatun is leading the Bangladesh team while all-rounder Rumana Ahmed has been made her deputy.

They will play three T20Is against Ireland on June 28, 29 and July 01 before flying to the Netherlands for the Women's World T20 Qualifier.

The eight-nation Women's World T20 qualifier, the matches of which will be treated as T20 internationals, will be held in Netherlands from July 07-14 where Bangladesh is grouped in Pool A with Papua New Guinea, Netherlands and UAE.

Pool B comprises of Ireland, Scotland, Thailand and Uganda.

The top two teams of the qualifying round will join Australia, England, India, New Zealand, Pakistan, South Africa, Sri Lanka and hosts West Indies in the final round of the Women's World T20 scheduled for November 9-25 in the Caribbean islands.

Bangladesh women will face Scotland in their only warm-up game on July 05 before taking on PNG in their opening match on July 07.

In the remaining two group matches of the eight-nation qualifier, Bangladesh will face the Netherlands and the UAE on July 08 and 10 respectively.

Bangladesh came to the limelight by clinching their maiden multi-team women's Asia Cup title in June defeating six-time champions India twice.