If You Dream, Dream It Big
Salma Khatun is an international name today. A name recognized in the world anywhere women’s cricket is played. It is nevertheless a dream journey for a poor girl from a poor village, an achievement beyond anyone’s wildest dream!
It is also time for celebration for the Bangladesh Tigress . What a difference a couple days make! Only on Tuesday they were devastated, losing soundly to the Sri Lankan women at Dhaka. And with that their chance to qualify for the Women’s World cup went out the window!
Yesterday, they played against the US team and they won the game solidly, as they were expected to do. The US women team is the weakest of the tournament. They lost all but one of the games they played, and their win was by a single run against Zimbabwe, a team that was not rated highly in this tournament. Even that win was considered against the run of play. They were raw, hurriedly assembled for this tournament in a short time, and they hardly have any match practices before they left home. Yet, the way Bangladesh team won against them was very convincing.
USA won the toss and chose to bat, but they were bowled out for only 78. Bangladesh strike bowler Khadiza Tul Kubra, who had a very good run in this event, took 4 wickets for only 20 runs with her penetrating off-spin. And when Bangladesh team batted It took them only 18.5 overs to reach their target, and they lost only one wicket in the process. This win earned them one day status in world cricket, a dream for the whole nation.
This was as much a milestone for a nation as much as it was for the team’s skipper Salma Khatun. From a small shanty in a village called Milkidear on the banks of river Bhairav, it has been a tremendous journey for Salma. Having lost her father at a young age, her mother had always struggled to put food on table. The only recreation Salma had growing up was playing with her maternal uncle and his sons. Her cousins played cricket with tennis ball and homemade wickets and bats. They took her in not only because they needed enough players to make it a team—she played well, even better than many boys. In fact Salma had a passion for cricket, and she could both bat and ball.
Follow Technorati