Sri Lanka overcomes the Bangladeshi side to keep their tournament hopes ongoing
The Lankan team will meet the Pakistani side in their must-win final tournament match
Women's Cricket World Cup, Navi Mumbai
The Lankan team 202 (48.4 overs): Perera 85 (99); Shorna Akter 3-27
The Bangladeshi team 195-9 (50 overs): Joty 77 (98); Athapaththu 4-42
Sri Lanka win by seven runs
The Lankan cricket team secured four crucial dismissals in the decisive innings segment to complete a heart-stopping win over their opponents and maintain their slim hopes of qualifying for the World Cup semi-finals intact.
Needing a attainable total of 203 on a good batting surface in Navi Mumbai, the Bangladeshi team needed nine additional runs from the last six bowls.
Yet, Sri Lanka captain Chamari Athapaththu claimed three crucial wickets in four balls and de Silva dismissed via run-out Nahida to achieve a exciting success for the Lankan team.
The victory – Sri Lanka's maiden of the tournament after three defeats and two abandoned games against the Australian team and the Kiwi side – elevates them equal on four points with the Indian team and the New Zealand side, who confront each other on Thursday.
Bangladesh, on the other hand, experienced a fifth consecutive setback since securing victory in their tournament opener against Pakistan and have been eliminated.
While the Bangladeshi side made the perfect start, with Marufa striking with the initial ball of the encounter to dismiss Vishmi Gunaratne, they were rightfully penalized for a subpar fielding display.
They provided second chances to Hasini Perera, who was missed on three occasions, and Athapaththu.
Even though the Sri Lankan skipper failed to take advantage, dismissed leg before wicket for 46 just one delivery after being dropped by Rabeya Khan, Hasini Perera forced Bangladesh regret it.
She scored a first international 50-run score, scoring 85 from 99 deliveries and sharing an crucial 74-run stand fifth-wicket association with De Silva.
The Bangladeshi team, spearheaded by Shorna Akter's impressive bowling figures, pulled themselves back into the game, with De Silva's removal in the 34th innings segment causing a Sri Lanka downfall from 174-4 to 202 all out.
While batting second, the Lankan team's opening bowlers Madara and Prabodhani limited Bangladesh to 23 for one in a lacklustre powerplay and they were afterwards reduced to 44 with three wickets lost.
Sharmin and Nigar Sultana Joty restored their score, adding 82 for the fourth wicket collaboration before Sharmin retired hurt for a determined 64 in the 36th bowling phase.
It was advantage the chasing team approaching the final two overs, with only 12 more runs needed.
However, Sugandika Dasanayaka removed Ritu and conceded only three runs before Athapaththu's chaos, with Rabeya, Nahida Akter, skipper Joty and Marufa Akter all removed as Sri Lanka snatched the victory at the death.
The Bangladeshi team are unable to maintain composure - and fielding opportunities
In the end, it was a game of composure. The highly experienced Lankan captain, who directed away a few of fellow players as she got ready to deliver the decisive over, held her composure. The opposition could not.
There will be numerous doubts about the team's batting performance. They might well have been pursuing around 270-280 with the Lankan team appearing settled on 159 with four wickets down in the 30th over, but instead the target was significantly less.
Nevertheless, the batting side lacked purpose from the very beginning, making runs at less than 2.5 scoring rate during the initial phase, suffering a top-order collapse, and ultimately making themselves too much to do.
But no matter what issues there are with their batting, if they had seized their opportunities in the field, that 203-run objective would have been significantly less.
It took them three efforts to break the 72-run stand second-wicket association, with keeper Nigar Sultana not managing to hold a difficult opportunity behind the stumps to dismiss Hasini Perera on her score of 23 before Athapaththu survived from a caught and bowled chance opportunity against Rabeya Khan.
The batter was dropped further on 55 runs and her score of 63, the final opportunity going directly to Jhilik at cover, before ultimately being dismissed leg before wicket by Shorna as she tried to accelerate the scoring with partners falling near her.
Later in the batting effort, there was also a missed stumping and a missed run-out, while the run-out chance was a little unlucky, with Rubya Haider standing in with the keeping duties following an fitness issue to the regular keeper.
Unfortunately for the team, such fielding problems are nowhere near a one-off. They've missed 14 chances from a possible 27 opportunities at this World Cup and display the worst catching success rate (less than 50%) of the participating teams.
They are a team who are typically heading in the right direction – they are competing in merely their second ODI World Cup ultimately – but inadequate fielding standards is a obvious concern which demands focus.
