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In the months leading up to the Women’s ODI World Cup, co-hosted by India and Sri Lanka, Bangladesh pacer Marufa Akter could think of little else but her debut on the grand stage.

“I always thinking, when I’m sleeping, always I’m thinking, first match, I do better. Always, I am the match winner (sic),” she said after helping her side to a cherished win against Pakistan in the campaign opener in Colombo.

The joy of a job well done was written all over her face. The only pacer selected in a lineup packed with spinners — built to suit the expectedly slow surface at the R. Premadasa Stadium — the 20-year-old proved that one can be enough when that one is Marufa: fast, strong, light on her feet, and capable of drawing out prodigious swing.

A fan of Australian great Mitchell Starc, Marufa has chosen a fitting role model. Her inswinger to right-handers left Pakistan gasping when she removed Omaima Sohail and the in-form Sidra Amin off successive deliveries, reducing them to ruins in the very first over. The effort drew praise from several leading voices in world cricket, including Sri Lankan legend Lasith Malinga, who posted a clip of her twin strikes with the words: “Pure skill, excellent control. So far, the best delivery in this tournament.”

It brought back memories of another two-in-two she produced against Sri Lanka at the 2023 T20 World Cup in South Africa, when she dismissed Vishmi Gunaratna and Anushka Sanjeewani with a ball swinging in from the fourth stump to jolt the chase. That came after removing Chamari Athapaththu in her previous over. She took all three wickets to fall that day, though Bangladesh still fell short.

A more emphatic demonstration of her talent came in Bangladesh’s first-ever ODI win over India in 2023, when she returned figures of 4 for 29, dismissing Smriti Mandhana, Priya Punia, Amanjot Kaur, and Sneh Rana to seal a famous victory.

Smriti, ever generous in praise, said later: “It doesn’t matter what her age is. The kind of effort she is putting in the field, just to watch her with the kind of fire she has in her to be a good cricketer has been just amazing. Her ball skids a bit more than we expect from her release point. These sorts of wickets (low and slow in Dhaka) aren’t helping her much. We’ll have to see what she does in England and Australia.”

Building Power

Back then, Marufa was a wiry teenager who roared at every wicket and hurled herself at the ball in the field. The passion remains, but the foundation has strengthened—built on structured fitness, power training, and technical refinement. That shift came under the guidance of Bangladesh’s former strength and conditioning coach Ian Durrant.

“Earlier, I used to bench press 25–30kg. Now I do around 42–44kg, and squats with 30–35kg have now gone up to 60kg,” an excited Marufa said in a video shared by the Bangladesh Cricket Board.

She also studies strength in others, taking a particular liking to Pakistan’s Diana Baig.

“Her arm is very strong. I love her swing; she can do inswing and outswing,” Marufa said after their tussle in Colombo.

The young pacer made a strong early impression, finishing as Bangladesh’s top wicket-taker at the 2023 U-19 T20 World Cup and putting in notable performances at the 2022 Asian Games. Captain Nigar Sultana Joty, who has watched her evolution from behind the stumps, has been among her keenest observers.

“Initially, she didn’t think much about her bowling and other elements. I used to be the one helping her with her plans. She has matured since. She now thinks about her own bowling strategy and about her plans in the death, how she needs to attack a left-hander or a good slogger who can find the boundary,” Joty told Sportstar.

Joty knows the difficulty of keeping that spark alive when everyone wants to refine you.

“We have not seen this sort of player in our country for a long time. She is unique and very special. She is a very hardworking player as well. Her action is different. In Bangladesh, we don’t have a player like this who can bowl with the kind of speed she has and manage that kind of swing. She has worked with so many coaches in the past few years now, but the good thing is that they have not changed anything core about her. They are only polishing what she already is.”

From One Field to Another

There was a time when Marufa’s current life seemed a distant dream. Around the pandemic, videos shared by cricketer-turned-coach Arifa Jahan Bithi — who runs Bangladesh’s first and only academy for girls, the Women’s Dreamer Cricket Academy in Rangpur — brought Marufa into national focus.

In one of them, wearing a yellow puffer jacket, Marufa and her father are seen ploughing their paddy field. By then she had already been scouted, but the pandemic halted training and funding, threatening to end her career before it began. Though Arifa never formally trained her, she has remained a constant supporter and sounding board.

She trains over 350 girls across various age groups and knows firsthand how rare a talent like Marufa is.

“Marufa has a background of working very hard in the fields since childhood. She is a good athlete, a natural athlete, and that amount of hard work is normal for people like her and has held her in good standing. Watching her remove those two batters in the first over gave me goosebumps. That kind of pace bowling I have not seen from a player from this nation,” she told Sportstar.

For a simple farming family surviving on leased land, Marufa’s rise has been life-changing. But what means most to her is the shift in her father’s outlook.

“My family was not very supportive because my father is a farmer, so he wanted me to get a normal job. But day by day, when I started doing well, my family started supporting me very much,” she said earlier, with Joty translating for her.

Shared triumph: Arifa Jahan Bithi, who first spotted Marufa’s spark in Rangpur, shares a proud smile with Bangladesh’s rising pace star.
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement

The League Life

From being spotted by Mohammedan Sporting Club at a trial aged 15 and joining the Bangladesh krira shikkha protishtan to becoming the side’s pace spearhead, Marufa’s journey has been as fulfilling to watch as it has been to live.

Once a shy teenager who poured all her energy into cricket, negotiating savings and societal expectations to make accommodations for her dream, she is now an assured, smiling competitor who needs no translator, delivers sharp one-liners, and relishes taking on the biggest names in the game.

When asked if she wanted to feature in leagues such as the Women’s Premier League (WPL) or the Women’s Big Bash League (WBBL), Marufa turned uncertainly to the media manager beside her, who steered clear of franchise talk. Whether she’s ready for that leap or not, those who have seen her bowl believe the step is only a matter of time.

“I think Marufa’s talent should travel to the WPL and WBBL. There are very few players in this franchise circuit from Bangladesh. We’ve had Rumana Ahmed and Jahanara Alam feature abroad, but if more girls find opportunities, it will inspire the rest here,” Arifa said.

“How she started in this World Cup will and should attract franchises,” Joty added. “This way, she will get more exposure in the sport, too. But right now, she should focus on the World Cup, and she needs to take care of building strength physically and mentally. She’s very young and has a unique action. She needs things to be done to be ready for cricket on that level.”

For now, Marufa’s mantra stays simple.

“It’s always me vs me and not me vs others,” she said — a gentle warning to those yet to face her.

The cricketing world, for one, can’t wait.

Published on Oct 07, 2025