Sri Lanka defeats Bangladesh to keep their tournament hopes breathing
The Lankan team will meet Pakistan in their must-win final tournament game
ICC Women's World Cup, Navi Mumbai
The Lankan team 202 (48.4 overs): Hasini Perera 85 (99); Shorna 3-27
The Bangladeshi team 195-9 (50 overs): Joty 77 (98); Athapaththu 4-42
The Lankan side win by seven runs
The Lankan cricket team took four crucial dismissals in the final over to complete a thrilling win over Bangladesh and keep their narrow chances of qualifying for the World Cup semi-finals intact.
Needing a modest target of 203 on a good batting surface in the Mumbai stadium, the Bangladeshi team wanted nine more runs from the final six balls.
Nevertheless, Lankan skipper Chamari Athapaththu secured three wickets in four deliveries and Nilakshi de Silva ran out Nahida to bring about a exciting victory for Sri Lanka.
The triumph – the Lankan team's initial of the tournament after three losses and two no-results against Australia and the Kiwi side – pushes them level on four tournament points with India and the New Zealand side, who confront each other on Thursday.
The Bangladeshi team, in contrast, suffered a fifth consecutive setback since winning their tournament opener against Pakistan and have been eliminated.
While the Bangladeshi side got off to the excellent commencement, with Marufa taking a wicket with the opening bowl of the encounter to send back Vishmi Gunaratne, they were deservedly penalized for a subpar fielding effort.
They gifted reprieves to Hasini Perera, who was spilled on three occasions, and Athapaththu.
Although the Sri Lankan skipper was unable to make it count, dismissed lbw for 46 one ball after being dropped by Rabeya Khan, Perera forced the opposition suffer.
She registered a first international half-century, scoring 85 from 99 balls and building an important 74-run partnership fifth-wicket collaboration with De Silva.
Bangladesh, led by Shorna's 3-27, dragged themselves back in the match, with De Silva's wicket in the 34th innings segment causing a Lankan batting collapse from 174 with four wickets down to 202 all out.
In reply, Sri Lanka's initial pace attack Malki Madara and Prabodhani restricted the opposition to 23-1 in a uninspiring opening overs and they were afterwards reduced to 44-3.
Sharmin and Joty rebuilt their score, adding 82 for the fourth wicket stand before the batter withdrew due to injury for a resolute 64 in the 36th over.
It was in favor of Bangladesh heading into the last two innings segments, with only 12 more runs needed.
However, Dasanayaka sent back Ritu Moni and allowed only three scoring runs before Athapaththu's chaos, with Rabeya, Nahida Akter, captain Joty and Marufa all sent back as Sri Lanka seized the win at the final moment.
The Bangladeshi team are unable to keep calm - and catches
In the end, it was a match of composure. The very experienced Athapaththu, who directed away a handful of team-mates as she got ready to deliver the final over, kept her composure. Bangladesh could not.
There will be plenty of inquiries about the team's batting display. They possibly have been chasing around 270-280 with Sri Lanka seeming settled on 159 with four wickets down in the 30th innings segment, but instead the target was considerably smaller.
Yet, the batting side showed little intent from the start, scoring at less than 2.5 runs each over during the opening overs, suffering a early batting collapse, and ultimately making themselves excessive to accomplish.
But whatever issues there are with their batting approach, if they had seized their chances in the fielding department, that 203-run target objective would have been significantly lower.
It took them three attempts to end the 72-run stand second-wicket collaboration, with keeper Joty failing to grab a difficult opportunity behind the stumps to remove Perera on 23 runs before Athapaththu survived from a caught and bowled chance against Rabeya Khan.
The batter was missed once more on 55 and 63, the final opportunity flying straight to Jhilik at cover field, before eventually being dismissed leg before wicket by Shorna as she attempted to accelerate the scoring with partners being dismissed around her.
Subsequently in the game, there was also a failed stumping and a failed run-out, even though the latter was a little unfortunate, with Rubya Haider substituting with the keeping duties due to an injury to Joty.
Unfortunately for the team, such fielding woes are not at all a single occurrence. They've missed 14 catches from a possible 27 at this tournament and have the lowest catch efficiency (48.1%) of the eight teams.
They are a squad who are typically moving in the proper way – they are participating in only their second 50-over World Cup ultimately – but inadequate fielding standards is a prominent problem which demands improvement.
