Bangladesh women's team's cricketers should be tired of going unnoticed

I initially started writing this piece after a frankly disastrous World Cup campaign by the Bangladesh men's cricket team. Introspection and reflection were required at the time and still are.

But for me, this has little to do with what went on in India. Rather, this introspection stems from neglect, now fuelled further by the emotions of hope followed by despair.

Our women's cricket team, off the back of consecutive T20I and ODI series wins against Pakistan, continues to lift the sport higher than they ever have before. Yet, they continue to be neglected.

Just last week, they followed their incredible form at home with a stupendous victory against South Africa in their own backyard.

It was a T20I for the ages—Bangladesh, defending only 150, found their opponents already third of the way there by the end of the powerplay without losing a single wicket.

But Shorna Akter spun a web around the Proteas batters, taking five wickets to script a victory beyond belief.

Even with the incredible year our Tigresses have had, the truth is quite blunt. And that is, we simply don't care.

I want to understand why that is the case—our women's cricket team continues to be belligerent and strive for the same attention, and more importantly, respect, that our men's team receive.

Don't get me wrong, I realise that in order to promote the women's game more, there needs to be more funding, and for that funding to come, there needs to be revenue.

The women's game in Bangladesh is stuck in a cyclical financial trap.

If there isn't money generated from women's cricket in Bangladesh, there isn't money to be pumped back into that system.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention that women's cricket in Bangladesh is run by men.

The administrative members of women's cricket in Bangladesh, must obviously, be women.

Our board is a world away from infallible, and an overhaul in the administration is urgently required.

But these are issues that only arise as a consequence of neglect.

Last month, it was revealed that our women's team had been playing without a salary for five months.

This is, to say the least, just one example of reprehensible behaviour on the part of our cricket board.

How does this even happen? How can you forget to pay your players?

And that brings me back to my original thought; we don't care.

Last month, while I watched Fargana Hoque and Murshida Khatun smash their way to an incredible opening partnership of 125, I noticed that there were probably less than 100 people watching live.

I have never been used to seeing Sher-e Bangla being that empty, but as I make a conscious effort to follow our women's cricket team more, it is a sight that is, unfortunately, becoming more natural to me.

The excuses that are being thrown around in regards to this lack of interest are quite simple—"there is no money in women's cricket in Bangladesh, it has never been culturally significant, or our players don't do well enough for us to care."

But these excuses are all rectifiable—and have been done by cricket-playing nations around the world.

Just the inaugural season of the Women's Premier League held in India earlier this year brought in almost US$50 million in revenue.

The Women's Big Bash League has been running successfully in Australia since 2015—and has now become culturally significant.

The most recent time women's cricket in Bangladesh was culturally significant was when Harmanpreet Kaur made a big fuss about erroneous umpiring in the third ODI of a series in July—the actual achievement of drawing level against a star-studded Indian line-up going unnoticed.

And this has been going on for as long as I can remember.

In 2018, our women's team won the first major piece of silverware when they won the Asia Cup.

But I wonder, how many people in Bangladesh who consider themselves avid cricket fans actually know about that happening?

Players not being able to market themselves as brands have also been an issue that plagues the women's game in Bangladesh.

Players like Ellyse Perry and Natalie Sciver have made themselves into marketable brands.

But I doubt many of us, even those of us who consider ourselves cricket lovers, could name the captain of the Bangladesh women's team, much less the rest of the squad. I'll be honest—I couldn't either, until a year ago.

Bangladesh women's cricket has found itself in a cycle that is very difficult to escape from.

We don't care about the Tigresses, and as such, the institutional issues that burden Bangladesh women's cricket have no reason to be fixed. And if these issues are not fixed, they will not be able to market themselves—and thus, no one will care about the team.

But at the end of the day, no one really bats an eye to the issues faced by our women's cricket team. But we should—they deserve our love and support, just as much as the men's team.

They will never say that they are tired of going unnoticed; simply they speak through their performances this year. And they say, "Wake up and smell the cricket."