Left-arm medium pacer Fariha Trisna's hat-trick against Australia delighted the small crowd that turned up at the Shere Bangla National Stadium in Mirpur. However, it came in a losing cause as Australia crushed the home side by 58 runs in the second T20I to seal the three-match series 2-0.
Trisna got her hat-trick off the last three balls of the innings. She first had Ellyse Perry caught at wide long-off, then dismissed Sophie Molineux at point and got Beth Mooney bowled down the leg side. This was Trisna's second hat-trick in T20Is, having picked up the first one on her debut against Malaysia in the 2022 Asia Cup in Sylhet.
"It feels good to get my second hat-trick," she said. "It is by Allah's grace that I achieved this feat. When I had the chance to take a hat-trick after picking up two wickets, I just wanted to bowl at the stumps. I tried to bowl tight [today] since I was coming back to T20Is after a while. I got a chance to play a match, so my aim was to contribute something for the team."
Trisna finished with figures of 4 for 19 but was disappointed with Bangladesh losing by a big margin. In reply to Australia's 161 for 8, the hosts mustered only 103 for 9. She conceded that her achievement would have felt much better had Bangladesh crossed the finish line.
"It is disappointing that we lost the game. If the team had won, the personal achievement would have felt much better," she said. "We would have celebrated then. The team comes first. We started well, so there was hope that we can finish properly too. But we tried hard till the end."
Trisna suffered a back injury last October, and was out of action for almost six months. She revealed that working with former Sri Lanka fast bowler Champaka Ramanayake helped her get back into rhythm.
"My first plan was to recover from my injury. I wanted to follow the process, so there was never any doubt that I would not return to the Bangladesh team from injury," she said. "After my rehab was completed, I was lucky to do the bowling camp under Ramanayake. It really helped me."
In her absence, the young Marufa Akter has been Bangladesh's pace mainstay. Bangladesh have been primarily going with only a single pace bowler in the recent past, but had both Trisna and Akter in the side in the second T20I against Australia. But can they continue to field two pacers in the slow and low surfaces at home?
"If we start doing well as a team, we can have two pacers in the line-up," Trisna said. "I tried to bowl in the right areas. There's no competition with Marufa, who is world-class bowler. She has everything."
'Trisna gets late shape back in' - Harris
Grace Harris, who starred for Australia with 47 off a 33 balls after being promoted to open on Tuesday, also heaped praise on Trisna.
"[It is] fantastic for her. I think she gets really good, late shape back into the right-hand batter," Harris said. "I'm assuming she's quite young, so she's got a lot of room to improve or to develop her game.
"But with the new ball, I actually found her a bit more challenging to face because she gets just quite late shape back in. And she's quite accurate, and on a length. So, I'm pretty happy with how I played her. And good on her for getting a hat-trick and for bowling quite well today."
The 21-year-old Trisna is the third women's bowler to take two T20I hat-tricks after Uganda's Concy Aweko and Hong Kong's Kary Chan.