The Lankan team beats the Bangladeshi side to keep their tournament hopes alive
The Lankan team will confront Pakistan in their crucial final group game
ICC Women's World Cup, Navi Mumbai
Sri Lanka 202 (48.4 overs): Perera 85 (99); Shorna 3-27
Bangladesh 195-9 (50 overs): Joty 77 (98); Athapaththu 4-42
The Lankan side win by seven runs
Sri Lanka secured four crucial dismissals in the last innings segment to seal a nail-biting victory over Bangladesh and preserve their narrow hopes of making it for the tournament knockout stage intact.
Chasing a attainable total of 203 on a favorable wicket in Navi Mumbai, the Bangladeshi team wanted nine more runs from the last six deliveries.
However, Lankan skipper Chamari Athapaththu secured three crucial wickets in four bowls and Nilakshi de Silva dismissed via run-out Nahida Akter to secure a exciting win for the Lankan team.
The win – Sri Lanka's maiden of the tournament after three defeats and two washed-out matches against the Australian team and the Kiwi side – moves them level on four match points with the Indian team and New Zealand, who meet each other on Thursday.
Bangladesh, however, endured a fifth successive defeat since winning their initial game against the Pakistani team and have been knocked out.
Even though Bangladesh made the excellent commencement, with Marufa Akter taking a wicket with the first delivery of the game to send back Vishmi Gunaratne, they were appropriately penalized for a disappointing fielding effort.
They gifted lifelines to Perera, who was missed three times, and Athapaththu.
While Athapaththu failed to make it count, sent back lbw for 46 just one delivery after being put down by Rabeya Khan, Perera forced the opposition pay.
She scored a first international 50-run score, accumulating 85 from 99 balls and contributing to an important 74-run partnership fifth-wicket collaboration with Nilakshi de Silva.
Bangladesh, led by Shorna's impressive bowling figures, pulled themselves back to the contest, with Nilakshi's wicket in the 34th over causing a Sri Lanka collapse from 174 with four wickets down to 202 all out.
In reply, the Lankan team's starting bowlers Madara and Prabodhani restricted Bangladesh to 23 with one wicket down in a uninspiring opening overs and they were subsequently diminished to 44 for three.
Sharmin Akter and Joty reconstructed their innings, adding 82 for the fourth wicket before the batter retired hurt for a stubborn 64 in the 36th innings segment.
It was advantage Bangladesh entering the final two innings segments, with only 12 more runs needed.
Nevertheless, Sugandika Dasanayaka removed Ritu and allowed just three runs before Athapaththu's decisive intervention, with Rabeya, Nahida Akter, captain Joty and Marufa all dismissed as Sri Lanka snatched the victory at the death.
The Bangladeshi team cannot maintain composure - and catches
Ultimately, it was a match of nerve. The highly experienced Lankan captain, who ushered away a several of fellow players as she set herself to bowl the decisive over, held her composure. Bangladesh did not.
There will be many questions about the team's batting performance. They could easily have been needing around 270-280 with Sri Lanka appearing comfortable on 159 with four wickets down in the 30th bowling phase, but rather the target was considerably smaller.
Yet, Bangladesh lacked purpose from ball one, scoring at less than 2.5 runs each over during the initial phase, experiencing a early batting collapse, and finally leaving themselves overwhelming to achieve.
But whatever issues there are with their batting lineup, if they had accepted their opportunities in the fielding department, that 203-run target objective would have been significantly lower.
It took them three efforts to terminate the 72-run second-wicket association, with keeper Nigar Sultana failing to take a challenging catch as wicketkeeper to send back Perera on 23 runs before the captain got a reprieve from a caught and bowled opportunity against Rabeya Khan.
The batter was missed once more on 55 and 63 runs, the latter chance flying directly to Rubya Haider Jhilik at cover field, before finally being trapped leg before wicket by Shorna Akter as she tried to accelerate the scoring with teammates getting out beside her.
Afterwards in the game, there was additionally a missed stumping and a failed run-out, although the second one was a little regrettable, with Rubya Haider standing in with the wicketkeeping gloves due to an physical problem to Joty.
Sadly for Bangladesh, such fielding woes are far from a isolated incident. They've dropped 14 chances from a possible 27 at this World Cup and have the lowest catch efficiency (48.1%) of the participating teams.
They are a team who are overall heading in the right direction – they are competing in merely their second ODI World Cup ultimately – but substandard fielding standards is a glaring issue which needs attention.
