17 March - Tauranga - Bangladesh Captain Nigar Sultana pre-match press conference
Reporter: So you're at a new ground in Tauranga and it's also a pretty fresh pitch. What did you make of England versus India yesterday? Do you see it good for the spinners particularly for England?
Nigar: Yeah, obviously we have seen the match. And this is a new venue and we would like to start new, and obviously get some ideas from the last match. So, we like to implement it in our match.
Reporter: And also another new team - you’ve not played the West Indies before in One Day Internationals. What have you made to that start of the tournament.?
Nigar: I think this is a good sign, I guess because they don't know us and we don't even know them. So this is going to be advantageous because they don't know how we play actually. So still yeah - we are going with our all strength actually and we are going to plan according to that, and so we would like to execute.
Reporter: And last one for me, you're obviously coming off the back of your first ever win at a World Cup. What is the mood around the camp going in this game?
Nigar: Obviously it was a fantastic match. It was a great pleasure to get our first World Cup win. And actually we want to forget about them because we want to move forward. But we want to take all the positives from the last match and we want to like to implement on the next match.****
Reporter: What does the win for people back home?
Nigar: I think it was exciting for all of us because it was our first win in the World Cup, and obviously back home there was a lot of support for us. They were waiting for this victory actually. And they all are super excited and they always keep faith in us every time. A lot of people messaged us, saying that we we are doing well and just need a little momentum.
Reporter: Nigar, one of your initial goals in the previous match was to defeat Pakistan, it has been fulfilled. Now you must be relieved that you can enjoy the next matches. In such a case, even though the opponent is very strong actually, how confident are you to play against them?
Nigar: First of all, I don't think we consider any opponent hard or easy. We are considering opponents as opponents. When we assume that the opponents are difficult for us then the game will be very difficult. So, normally, we mostly try to see our strengths and how we will play against them. We will only see how we can resist them by using strength or using our game plan. So we're looking in that way. Plus the win against Pakistan has given us good momentum which will encourage us to play better in the upcoming matches.
Reporter: And in your previous match, you got a lot of help from the spinners, what do you expect from the wicket of this match, or how you will go with the team game combination?
Nigar: We will go along with our strength, we will go with our combination. Of course, what happened in the last match - maybe the spinners did much better. But I would say that our pace bowling attack also did very well in the first and second match. So, overall, I wish our full bowling unit could come back strongly, and if the spinners could continue the good work that they did in the last match, I think we could play good cricket.
Reporter: Nigar, actually as you were talking about team combinations, did you see the wicket of the previous match? How do you see the wicket of the game that will be played tomorrow compared to the last match? What do you expect after seeing the wicket?
Nigar: It seems to me that more or less all venues' wickets are the same, we will get a very sporty wicket. Yesterday we had a practice session where we looked at the side wickets. It seemed that it might be a little slow. We haven't gone to see the main wicket yet, maybe we will have a chance to see it today. After seeing that we will actually understand which combination we will go through. But still, as I saw in the previous matches with other teams, the wickets behaved very well. Here, however, there have been runs and low-scoring matches. So, all in all, it seems to me that we will get a good sporty wicket and after seeing the wickets, we will actually get our game plan ready accordingly.
Reporter: First of all congratulations to you on the last match since we didn't see you after going to the press conference. The point is, after such a victory, the focus shifts a lot, because if the main goal or the main victory is achieved, then that urge may not remain the same as before. So, is there any fear on this issue, or how are you addressing it?
Nigar: No, I said this first when I came here that we have already forgotten the Pakistan match. Because now we are only focusing on the West Indies. Because we had a plan from the beginning that we would go ahead match by match. We are not thinking about the whole tournament yet. The focus may shift to many, but I think we're focusing more on the fact that we've got good momentum in our team. We have won a match, so the team is in a good mood, which makes me think we are more excited to do better in a more positive way. That we have done well, how can we do even better? Because we know that if we can do well here it will be very good for our cricket and it will be very inspiring for the next generation in the future.
Roney: Well, another thing is that the core strength of the West Indies batting is actually at their top. Their two openers are in very good form. Deandra Dottin and Hayley Matthews. Stafanie Taylor comes later. Although she made fifty in the last match she was not in very good touch, not in her best form. So, it would be very important to take two or three wickets at the beginning from the top. How much was this in your discussion, or how do you want to take it?
Nigar: We have never played with the West Indies but we have watched their matches almost all the time. But we have been seeing them for so many years and our analysts are always trying to give as much information as they have. So individually, just as the bowlers are planning against their batsmen, so are the batsmen planning against their bowlers. Yes, of course, I will say that they may be very confident in power cricket but what I think is the capability and the bowling strength that our bowlers have if we do our best and if we can play our best cricket against them, then I think the result will come to the side.
Reporter: Congratulations. Bangladesh is playing very good cricket. Apart from the win against Pakistan, if we think about it, you have played very good cricket in the previous two matches as well. Bangladeshi girls got very few opportunities to play 'One day'(ODI) cricket. Bangladesh has not played 50 ODIs yet. Now from this World Cup maybe we will see that Bangladesh is playing many more games. So there are two records waiting in front. One is, Pinky to score a thousand runs. Romana Ahmed is very close to 50 wickets, you are also very close to 500 runs. Although it's not too much in terms of runs, it may be the first in terms of our achievement - 50 wickets, 1000 runs, 500 runs, etc. How do you see the goals for this achievement? In the past11 years, we've played close to 50 ODIs. The Bangladeshi girls have played very few ODIs. So in the future, maybe the opportunities will gradually increase. So what will this journey be like and what was the previous journey like, and how are you dealing with these upcoming records?
Nigar: Of course, I would say that after qualifying (to the World cup), we felt that the door was open for us to do better. Now in our team, you will see there are many good players who are world-class players, who can compete with the world. Maybe many of us couldn't represent ourselves due to a lack of opportunities. But now we have the opportunity to represent ourselves. And the more matches we'll play, the more our achievements will increase day by day. Today we are thinking of Romana Ahmed for her 50 wickets. Maybe if she gets a few more wickets she will be able to complete her 50 wickets. You will see in a few days that as fast as she will play more matches she will reach close to 100 wickets. And if I speak about Farzana Haque, she is also close to a milestone. There are a lot of players like that who can't touch some small milestones, but we have a lot of opportunities. And not only this World Cup but also after this World Cup we'll play a lot of matches. We'll play many bilateral series. So in that case, The opportunity to create more new milestones is increasing. For the last one and a half to two years, the cricket board and we individually all players have been trying to achieve that. Our thought was that If we could qualify and play in the World Cup, there would be a lot of opportunities waiting for us. So far, I think that if we can continue playing good cricket, of course, a lot of [good] things are waiting for us ahead.