The Bahrain women’s cricket team has come a long way in a very short span of time and shown ‘massive’ improvement, the team’s coach said.
“For a team, that was literally formed just three months ago, to have performed the way these girls have done in this tournament is truly incredible,” Prabodha Arthavidu told the GDN from Oman, where Bahrain had just missed qualifying for the semi-finals of the six-nation GCC Women’s T20I Championship Cup.
Perched at number four on the table, Bahrain looked set to easily make the cut as they headed into their final match against the UAE on Saturday. Kuwait were level on points with Bahrain but a spot below because of net run-rate, with no games in hand. All Bahrain had to do was put in a good effort so that, even if they lost, their superior net run-rate would ensure qualification.
Instead, the team collapsed to a morale-shattering 43 all out as they chased an imposing 254-run target set by the vastly more experienced UAE team. The huge margin of defeat allowed Kuwait to leapfrog Bahrain on net run-rate into the fourth spot on the table, causing heartbreak to a team of mostly amateurs with South Asian roots who had punched above their weight throughout the tournament.
But Arthavidu, a former Sri Lanka under-19 player, saw only positives in the team’s remarkable journey through the tournament – and in the months preceding it.
“All these girls are good learners and the team has shown massive, massive improvement in the short time that they’ve been playing together,” he said. “The UAE women’s team, who started playing international cricket in 2007 and Oman, who started in 2008, are streets ahead of us in terms of experience and infrastructure. Kuwait and Qatar have also been on the international scene since 2014. Only Saudi Arabia, like us, are new entrants into the fold.”
Indeed, the Bahraini women created history when they took on hosts Oman in the opening match of the tournament, becoming the first women’s cricket team from the kingdom to play in a T20 international.
Although they lost that match comprehensively and succumbed narrowly to Qatar a day later, their next game against Saudi Arabia put Bahrain women’s cricket firmly in the international spotlight.
The team scored 318 for one, setting a new world record for the highest team total in women’s T20Is with former Sri Lankan international Deepika Rasangika smashing the highest individual score as she finished with 161 not out.
Unfortunately, for Bahrain, Rasangika had to sit the crucial last match out because of injury, the coach said.
Eagerness
“Deepika couldn’t play in our last game because she was injured a day earlier,” Arthavidu said, explaining that Rasangika had suffered a fracture to her nose when the ball burst through her hands as she tried to take a catch. “But I have to stress here again that the team has done wonders in this tournament. Just remember: they played five high-intensity international matches in seven days.
That could take a toll on even the most proficient professional side but these girls have not demonstrated any unease – just an eagerness to absorb and learn as much as they can.”
A level 3 coach, Arthavidu, who relocated to Bahrain in 2020 from New Zealand where he had been based and coaching different county sides since 2013, has relished the challenge of coaching what he called ‘raw, exciting’ talent.
“It’s a big challenge, to be sure,” Arthavidu explained. “But this tournament has shown what can be achieved through dedication and hard work. There’s no telling what our teams of the future will be able to achieve once we’ve put all our plans in place.”
Those plans include building a system from the grass-roots up, targeting schools so that girls are introduced to the game early and building on the gains made by organising more tournaments for local women’s teams to play in.
“There’s a process to be followed, obviously,” Arthavidu said. “The Bahrain Cricket Federation (BCF) has a clear road-map that we’re going to be following. And, given the start our women’s team has made in international cricket, there’s no telling what could come next. But it’ll all be good!”
Arthavidu knows a thing or two about fortunate happenstance: he ended up in New Zealand almost a decade ago after taking advice from noted Sri Lankan cricket journalist, Roshan Abeysinghe – known as the ‘voice of Sri Lankan cricket’ – when the journalist noticed that the young cricketer was getting frustrated at the lack of playing opportunities at international level and suggested he should spend some time in New Zealand.
His intended stay of a few months turned into almost seven years of coaching different domestic sides in New Zealand before relocating to Bahrain almost a year and a half ago.
Now, fully focused on furthering the cause of Bahrain cricket, Arthavidu said he was grateful for the support his wife, expecting their third child, provides to him.
“She’s phenomenal,” he said. “My job requires me to be away from home for long stretches at a time and she never complains. It helps immensely to have such a supportive, understanding partner.”
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