With Bangladesh men’s team having recently secured a historic Test victory over Australia in Darwin, Australia women’s team captain Sophie Molineux says her side will not take anything for granted when they face Bangladesh in a three-match ODI series in October.
Australia levelled the two-match Test series after Bangladesh registered their first Test win over Australia on Australian soil. The result served as a reminder of the threat Bangladesh can pose, with Australia set to face the women’s side in Brisbane on October 9, 11 and 14.
While Australia will enter the ODI series as clear favourites, Molineux believes the Test result is a timely reminder that complacency cannot be afforded.
“I think that’s just sport, right? Anything can happen on any given day, and that’s probably just a nice reminder to everyone that that’s what sport brings,” Molineux was quoted as saying by DGEN.News.
“It was great to see and I suppose that series being a really tightly contested one, with a lot of eyeballs watching both in Australia and Bangladesh. So yeah, I’m sure there will be no different in terms of our series and it being tightly contested here,” she said.
“Bangladesh create different challenges for us. It just shows you how further the women’s game is going to be able to have Bangladesh here and playing in our home conditions. It is going to be a really exciting series for both of us, I think, and hopefully the crowds will come out and it’s going to be a good contest,” she added.
Molineux also acknowledged that Australia will have to make adjustments to their preparation, particularly given Bangladesh’s bowling attack, which relies heavily on spin and variations of pace.
“I think there’s probably a lot of things that we’re going to have to cover. They’re a really skilful team. I think from a bowling point of view, there is a lot of pace off. I know that we’re probably a little bit more used to the pace coming on the ball, but they’ve got some quality spinners in their team that we’re going to have to do our work on and make sure we’re prepared for. They’re very skilful as well. I think we’ll have to bowl very well to them,” she said.
Molineux also singled out Bangladesh pacer Marufa Akter as someone Australia will need to prepare for.
“She’s very skilful and again we’ll have to do our homework. We’ve played against them a little bit over the last two or three years, so we’ve got a lot of learnings from that. But yeah, at the same time, playing them in our conditions will be a bit different and we’ll have to adjust accordingly,” she added.
