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Bangladesh captain Nigar Sultana Joty wants a winning start when they begin their campaign of the ICC Women’s World Cup against familiar foes Pakistan at the R Premadasa Stadium in Colombo today.

The match is scheduled to begin at 3:30pm Bangladesh Standard Time.

‘It will be a good opportunity for the team to get a good start, because it’s the opener of the tournament for us,’ Joty said in the pre-match press conference on Wednesday.

‘So, it [a win] will set up a good tone for the whole tournament, and it will give us more confidence to play well in the rest of the games,’ she added.

It will be the first international game for Joty & Co since April, when they played in the World Cup Qualifiers. However, an opposition like Pakistan gave Joty some hope.

‘For us it is a good thing to play against Pakistan because we have played against each other on many occasions. And, see, we played against them in qualifiers, and we played bilateral series as well. So, it could be a good contest,’ she said.

Before the World Cup, head coach Sarwar Imran stated that they would target two wins: against Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

But to be able to achieve that, they need to improve their batting. However, Joty said that they were ready to make big scores after admitting the fact that this had been their biggest concern.

‘See, for a long period of time, I think batting was our main concern because our bowlers have been spot on in each and every game. Fielders are also doing very well. But the thing is, we couldn’t capitalise on it as a batting unit,’ she said.

‘Then we discussed that we do have the potential. So, why are we not able to give our 100 per cent in the game? Or why are we settling down and not going for a big score? So, then I think we’ve worked very hard as a batting unit, and we actually promised ourselves that this is it,’ she added.

‘This is a good opportunity for us to see what we have been prepared for and how we qualified last time. It was really hectic. So, we don’t want to go through that part again. And if we want to do well and if we want to win games, we have to put some runs on the board,’ she further said.

Joty also said that they wanted to keep things simple as far as the game plan was concerned.

She said, ‘I guess we just wanted to keep our game plan simple, because a particular day is very important. And we just wanted to play according to our plans and keep it more simple with what we can do right now.’

‘The thing which is important is tomorrow is a very important day, and each and every one, including the team, wants to get a good win tomorrow to set the tone for the tournament. So, we just wanted to make fewer mistakes tomorrow, and hopefully we’ll get a good match,’ she added.