Sri Lanka defeats Bangladesh to keep their World Cup campaign ongoing
The Lankan team will meet the Pakistani side in their decisive last tournament game
Women's Cricket World Cup, Navi Mumbai
The Lankan team 202 (48.4 overs): Hasini Perera 85 (99); Shorna 3-27
Bangladesh 195-9 (50 overs): Nigar Sultana Joty 77 (98); Chamari Athapaththu 4-42
Sri Lanka win by seven runs margin
The Lankan cricket team claimed four wickets in the final over to seal a heart-stopping victory over their opponents and preserve their narrow hopes of making it for the World Cup semi-finals alive.
Needing a modest score of 203 on a favorable wicket in the Mumbai stadium, Bangladesh wanted nine runs from the remaining six deliveries.
Yet, Sri Lanka captain Chamari Athapaththu took three wickets in four bowls and Nilakshi de Silva dismissed via run-out Nahida to achieve a exciting success for the Lankan team.
The win – Sri Lanka's initial of the tournament after three losses and two no-results against the Australian team and the Kiwi side – moves them tied on four points with India and New Zealand, who face each other on Thursday.
The Bangladeshi team, in contrast, endured a fifth straight loss since securing victory in their tournament opener against Pakistan and have been eliminated.
Although the Bangladeshi side made the ideal beginning, with Marufa taking a wicket with the initial ball of the game to send back Gunaratne, they were appropriately penalized for a disappointing fielding performance.
They offered lifelines to Hasini Perera, who was dropped on three occasions, and the Lankan captain.
Although the Sri Lankan skipper failed to capitalise, removed lbw for 46 one ball after being dropped by Rabeya Khan, Perera forced the opposition regret it.
She scored a first international 50-run score, scoring 85 from 99 balls and building an important 74-run fifth-wicket collaboration with Nilakshi de Silva.
The Bangladeshi team, guided by Shorna's 3-27, fought themselves back in the contest, with Nilakshi's dismissal in the 34th bowling segment initiating a Lankan batting collapse from 174-4 to 202 total.
During their chase, the Lankan team's opening bowlers Madara and Udeshika Prabodhani restricted Bangladesh to 23-1 in a uninspiring initial phase and they were later brought down to 44 for three.
Sharmin Akter and Nigar Sultana Joty reconstructed their batting effort, adding an 82-run partnership for the fourth wicket stand before Sharmin withdrew due to injury for a resolute 64 in the 36th over.
It was leaning toward Bangladesh entering the final two bowling phases, with merely 12 additional runs necessary.
Yet, Dasanayaka dismissed Ritu and conceded merely three scoring runs before Athapaththu's chaos, with Rabeya Khan, Nahida Akter, skipper Joty and Marufa Akter all removed as the Lankan team grabbed the triumph at the final moment.
Bangladesh cannot hold nerve - and fielding opportunities
Ultimately, it was a match of nerves. The highly experienced Athapaththu, who ushered away a few of team-mates as she prepared to deliver the final over, kept hers. Bangladesh did not.
There will be plenty of questions about Bangladesh's batting performance. They could easily have been pursuing 270 to 280 with Sri Lanka looking comfortable on 159-4 in the 30th over, but instead the target was considerably smaller.
However, Bangladesh displayed insufficient aggression from ball one, accumulating runs at under 2.5 runs per over during the initial phase, undergoing a early batting collapse, and finally making themselves overwhelming to achieve.
But no matter what issues there are with their batting, if they had accepted their catches in the field, that 203-run target would have been significantly lower.
It required them three attempts to break the 72-run stand second-wicket association, with wicketkeeper Joty not managing to grab a difficult opportunity as wicketkeeper to remove Hasini Perera on her score of 23 before the captain got a reprieve from a caught and bowled opportunity against Rabeya Khan.
Perera was spilled once more on her score of 55 and her score of 63, the final opportunity flying directly to Rubya Haider Jhilik at cover position, before eventually being trapped lbw by Shorna Akter as she tried to increase the tempo with batting partners getting out near her.
Later in the batting effort, there was also a missed stumping and a missed run-out, while the second one was a somewhat unlucky, with Jhilik substituting with the keeping duties due to an physical problem to Joty.
Regrettably for Bangladesh, such fielding woes are not at all a isolated incident. They've missed 14 chances from a potential 27 at this competition and display the lowest catching success rate (48.1 percent) of the competing sides.
They are a squad who are typically progressing in the proper way – they are competing in only their second 50-over World Cup after all – but inadequate fielding performance is a glaring issue which demands focus.
