Sri Lanka defeats the Bangladeshi side to maintain their campaign breathing
The Lankan team will face Pakistan in their decisive last group match
Women's Cricket World Cup, Navi Mumbai
The Lankan team 202 (48.4 overs): Hasini Perera 85 (99); Shorna Akter 3-27
Bangladesh 195-9 (50 overs): Joty 77 (98); Chamari Athapaththu 4-42
The Lankan side emerge victorious by seven runs
Sri Lanka claimed four crucial dismissals in the final innings segment to achieve a nail-biting win over Bangladesh and preserve their narrow aspirations of making it for the tournament knockout stage ongoing.
Needing a modest total of 203 on a favorable wicket in Navi Mumbai, the Bangladeshi team needed nine more runs from the last six balls.
However, Sri Lanka captain Athapaththu secured three crucial wickets in four bowls and de Silva dismissed via run-out Nahida to bring about a exciting success for the Lankan team.
The victory – the Lankan team's first of the World Cup after three defeats and two washed-out matches against the Australian team and the Kiwi side – moves them equal on four match points with the Indian team and New Zealand, who meet each other on Thursday.
The Bangladeshi team, on the other hand, suffered a fifth successive setback since securing victory in their tournament opener against Pakistan and have been eliminated.
Even though the Bangladeshi side made the perfect start, with Marufa striking with the first delivery of the match to remove Vishmi Gunaratne, they were rightfully made to pay for a subpar fielding performance.
They provided reprieves to Perera, who was missed three times, and the Lankan captain.
Even though the Sri Lankan skipper failed to make it count, removed lbw for 46 one ball after being dropped by Rabeya Khan, Hasini Perera made the opposition regret it.
She registered a maiden international 50-run score, making 85 from 99 bowls and building an significant 74-run partnership fifth-wicket association with De Silva.
Bangladesh, spearheaded by Shorna's impressive bowling figures, dragged themselves back to the match, with De Silva's dismissal in the 34th bowling segment initiating a Sri Lanka collapse from 174-4 to 202 total.
While batting second, Sri Lanka's starting bowlers Madara and Udeshika Prabodhani limited Bangladesh to 23 for one in a lacklustre initial phase and they were subsequently reduced to 44 with three wickets lost.
Sharmin Akter and Nigar Sultana Joty restored their batting effort, contributing 82 for the fourth wicket collaboration before Sharmin withdrew due to injury for a resolute 64 in the 36th bowling phase.
It was advantage Bangladesh heading into the last two innings segments, with merely 12 runs required.
Nevertheless, Dasanayaka dismissed Ritu Moni and allowed just three runs before the captain's chaos, with Rabeya, Nahida, captain Joty and Marufa Akter all dismissed as Sri Lanka seized the win at the death.
Bangladesh are unable to keep calm - and fielding opportunities
Ultimately, it was a contest of nerve. The seasoned Athapaththu, who moved aside a handful of team-mates as she prepared to bowl the decisive over, kept her composure. Bangladesh could not.
There will be many doubts about Bangladesh's batting performance. They could easily have been pursuing around 270-280 with Sri Lanka seeming comfortable on 159-4 in the 30th over, but instead the required total was much lower.
Nevertheless, the batting side lacked purpose from ball one, scoring at under 2.5 scoring rate during the opening overs, undergoing a initial wicket loss, and eventually making themselves excessive to accomplish.
But no matter what problems there are with their batting lineup, if they had accepted their opportunities in the fielding department, that 203-run goal would have been substantially smaller.
It required them three efforts to end the 72-run second-wicket, with keeper Nigar Sultana failing to grab a tough catch behind the stumps to send back Perera on 23 runs before the captain was spared from a caught and bowled chance opportunity against Rabeya.
The batter was spilled further on her score of 55 and her score of 63, the latter chance going right to Rubya Haider Jhilik at cover, before eventually being given out lbw by Shorna Akter as she attempted to up the ante with batting partners getting out near her.
Afterwards in the innings, there was furthermore a stumping chance missed and a missed run-out, although the second one was a somewhat unfortunate, with Jhilik deputising with the gloves following an physical problem to the regular keeper.
Unfortunately for the team, such fielding issues are not at all a one-off. They've failed to catch 14 opportunities from a available 27 opportunities at this tournament and have the lowest catch efficiency (less than 50%) of the eight teams.
They are a squad who are typically heading in the right direction – they are playing in merely their second ODI World Cup ultimately – but inadequate fielding standards is a glaring problem which needs focus.
