Australia 168 for 3 (Litchfield 77, Habiba 2-36) beat Bangladesh 166 (Moni 45, Sutherland 4-30, Schutt 2-19) by seven wickets
When Sutherland’s bouncer cramped Sharmin Akhter for room, leaving her unable to get any control on the pull, Bangladesh were truly under the cosh, having lost three wickets inside the first powerplay.
That soon became 48 for 4, which prompted captain Nigar Sultana, perhaps Bangladesh’s best batter, to go into a shell. She hardly looked to score from that point and was happy to defend and merely prevent further wickets from falling.
The ploy was evident from the fact that Nigar didn’t put Sutherland under pressure when she bowled three successive no-balls in the 12th over. What’s more, unaware of the free hit on offer, she ducked under a short ball as well. Shorna Akter, too, curtailed her aggressive instincts to support her captain.
Bangladesh crawled at three runs per over through the middle phase before Tahlia McGrath had Nigar caught behind for 29 off 83 balls. Nigar perhaps half-referred to her own innings when, after the game, she said that Bangladesh “need to be cautious against the new ball and get the intent right”.
As soon as she fell, Moni and Shorna started to put back the pressure on Australia’s spinners. Moni fetched a couple of sweeps from outside off to hit them through midwicket. Shorna also used her feet more frequently.
Moni looked good to score her second half-century in ODIs but was hampered by cramps. That hindered her running, and eventually she was run-out for 45 off 63 balls. Sutherland was generous with her use of the back-of-the-hand slower ones from then on to keep the rest of the batters on a leash.
Australia were never going to be challenged in a paltry chase of 167, and Georgia Voll and Litchfield hit five fours in the first five overs of the chase to get them going.
But between these two bits of celebration for Habiba and Bangladesh, Litchfield had almost killed the chase. She moved around the crease to hit Marufa Aklter for three successive fours in the seventh over of the chase, and then muscled Habiba over mid-on for the only six in the match.
She played her trademark reverse sweep off Nahida Akter and soon got to fifty off just 35 balls. Her second-wicket stand with Ellyse Perry was worth 89 off 67 balls with Perry contributing only 15 off 23. Until the time Litchfield stepped out and drove Rabeya Khan straight to cover, it looked as if she would complete a century even with so few runs to get.
S Sudarshanan is a sub-editor at Cricinfo. @Sudarshanan7