Nigar's 'thank you' weighs heavily on history

Nigar's 'thank you' weighs heavily on history

Nigar Sultana has already learned that. Five years ago, in this month of victory. In 2019, in a T20I against Maldives in Pokhara. That day, Bangladesh women's cricket scored its first century in international cricket with her bat. She played an innings of 113 runs off 65 balls.

A century is a century, but even cricketers themselves see a century in Test or first-class cricket with a slightly different eye. Because maybe how good a cricketer is can be understood only in a long match. Patience, suffering, tolerance, tolerance, counterattack - these human qualities have to be passed in cricket to produce a three-figure innings. However, to understand the significance of what Nigar Sultana has achieved today, one more thing needs to be highlighted.

That is also very important in terms of cricketing ability. In the last one month, the Bangladesh women's cricket team has played only T20Is. T20 series against Ireland. And counting from last October, only 7 out of 10 matches played by the women's national team were T20s. The remaining three were ODIs. From this shortened version, it is not a small thing to change the mood of the batting in a very short time, playing three-day matches and playing two-two and a half hundred balls!

Nigar Sultana must have got as much satisfaction from playing an innings on the third day of the BCL at the Shahid Kamaruzzaman Stadium in Rajshahi today, which he did not get in the T20 innings?

Since this question was not asked to him, the reaction was not directly known. But you can guess, whether it was the previous one or the international one, today's century in first-class cricket will not be behind the previous one in his satisfaction account. Where is the 65-ball innings (113 in T20s), and where is the 253-ball innings!

An innings of 10.5 overs in terms of overs. Another 42.1 overs innings—Nigar Sultana had to bat for almost an innings in an ODI match. Whether this BCL is the first-ever first-class tournament in women's cricket, or how weak the opponent was—yet this innings is the 'gold standard' in terms of physical ability alone. Which ultimately stopped at the first in history of 153 unbeaten runs.

There will certainly be no question about the first history. You must know that history by now. This innings by Nigar Sultana is the first century in Bangladesh women's first-class cricket. The century came in 215 balls in an innings of 253 balls. Suppose that even after 100 years from now, women's first-class cricket will be forced to remember this innings by Nigar, or even as time passes, the significance of this innings will increase. Since first-class cricket is the foundation for a cricketer to become a big player, it is also for the country's domestic cricket. So after many years, it may be said that Nigar scored that century today... Not a big deal at all. Al Shahriar's first century in the boys' first class is still judged that way. So the significance of Nigar's history today is different.

But how did Nigar feel about the one we're talking about so much? When the captain of the Bangladesh women's team and the Central Zone stood in front of the camera in white after the match with the Northern Zone was drawn today, he had a smile on his face. He expressed his feelings like this, 'Alhamdulillah. Millions of thanks to Allah. A big milestone. For the first time, scoring a century in a three-day match, I was in my process, I am happy to have achieved it.'

After leaving the field unbeaten on 85 runs yesterday, did Nigar get a proper night's sleep? History is supposed to repeatedly knock on the door of sleep! But Nigar's words did not seem like much. He had a very clear plan for today, '(Yesterday) when I left the field, I found out that I had scored 85 runs. Many people were saying it was possible. I also thought it was possible, if I could bat with a little more patience. That's why I tried to play my normal cricket from this morning.'

Niger also told the story of the preparation behind playing the long innings. You might be surprised to hear that it is possible to play such an innings just by watching the others! Listen to Nigar's words, 'The way Pinky Apa (from Uttaranchal) was batting in the first innings, taking a lot of time and patience (86 off 246 balls), looking at the batting, it seemed like this is how cricket should be played. I had no experience at all. I got a lot of inspiration from watching their batting.'

While praising the bowlers, Nigar brought up the issue of adapting from T20 to three-day matches. We had to bowl a lot of overs. Similarly, we had to change the mood of batting. Nigar said that this year's BCL is very important for his debut in Test cricket, 'We didn't really think about preparing for it in such a short time. So thank you to the BCB for utilizing this time so well. "Opportunities have been created not only for national cricketers, but also for the rest of the cricketers."