Sri Lanka beats Bangladesh to preserve their campaign alive
The Lankan team will face Pakistan in their decisive final tournament encounter
Women's Cricket World Cup, Navi Mumbai
Sri Lanka 202 (48.4 overs): Perera 85 (99); Shorna Akter 3-27
Bangladesh 195-9 (50 overs): Nigar Sultana Joty 77 (98); Athapaththu 4-42
The Lankan side win by seven runs margin
The Lankan cricket team took four crucial dismissals in the final over to seal a heart-stopping triumph over their opponents and keep their narrow hopes of making it for the World Cup semi-finals ongoing.
Needing a attainable score of 203 on a favorable wicket in Navi Mumbai, the Bangladeshi team needed nine more runs from the remaining six balls.
Nevertheless, Lankan skipper Chamari Athapaththu claimed three wickets in four balls and de Silva ran out Nahida to achieve a dramatic success for the Lankan team.
The triumph – Sri Lanka's first of the competition after three unsuccessful matches and two abandoned games against the Australian team and the Kiwi side – pushes them equal on four tournament points with the Indian team and New Zealand, who meet each other on the coming Thursday.
Bangladesh, on the other hand, experienced a fifth consecutive loss since winning their tournament opener against Pakistan and have been eliminated.
Although Bangladesh made the excellent commencement, with Marufa Akter striking with the initial ball of the game to remove Gunaratne, they were appropriately penalized for a poor fielding display.
They offered reprieves to Hasini Perera, who was dropped on three occasions, and Athapaththu.
While the Sri Lankan skipper failed to make it count, dismissed leg before wicket for 46 one ball after being dropped by Rabeya, Hasini Perera forced Bangladesh regret it.
She achieved a first international 50-run score, scoring 85 from 99 deliveries and contributing to an significant 74-run fifth-wicket with De Silva.
The Bangladeshi team, spearheaded by Shorna's 3-27, fought themselves back in the match, with Nilakshi's dismissal in the 34th over causing a Lankan collapse from 174 with four wickets down to 202 complete.
While batting second, Sri Lanka's opening bowlers Malki Madara and Prabodhani restricted the opposition to 23-1 in a disappointing powerplay and they were afterwards reduced to 44-3.
Sharmin Akter and Nigar Sultana Joty rebuilt their innings, contributing 82 runs for the fourth wicket before Sharmin left the field injured for a resolute 64 in the 36th innings segment.
It was leaning toward the chasing team approaching the last two bowling phases, with merely 12 runs required.
However, Dasanayaka removed Ritu Moni and conceded just three scoring runs before the captain's chaos, with Rabeya, Nahida, skipper Joty and Marufa Akter all removed as the Lankan team snatched the triumph at the death.
The Bangladeshi team fail to maintain composure - and catches
Ultimately, it was a match of composure. The very experienced Lankan captain, who moved aside a several of team-mates as she prepared to deliver the last over, maintained hers. Bangladesh could not.
There will be numerous inquiries about Bangladesh's batting display. They possibly have been pursuing around 270-280 with the Lankan team seeming comfortable on 159-4 in the 30th bowling phase, but in contrast the chase was significantly less.
Yet, the batting side lacked aggression from ball one, scoring at under 2.5 runs each over during the powerplay, undergoing a top-order collapse, and ultimately forcing themselves excessive to achieve.
But no matter what difficulties there are with their batting approach, if they had taken their opportunities in the fielding area, that 203-run target would have been significantly lower.
It took them three efforts to break the 72-run partnership second-wicket, with wicketkeeper Joty not managing to grab a tough catch as wicketkeeper to remove Hasini Perera on 23 before Athapaththu was spared from a caught and bowled chance opportunity against Rabeya Khan.
The batter was spilled once more on 55 runs and 63, the final opportunity going straight to Rubya Haider Jhilik at cover position, before finally being dismissed lbw by Shorna as she attempted to accelerate the scoring with batting partners getting out near her.
Subsequently in the batting effort, there was also a missed stumping and a failed run-out, while the second one was a somewhat unfortunate, with Jhilik deputising with the gloves due to an physical problem to the regular keeper.
Regrettably for Bangladesh, such fielding problems are not at all a one-off. They've missed 14 opportunities from a potential 27 at this World Cup and boast the poorest catching success rate (less than 50%) of the competing sides.
They are a side who are overall heading in the right direction – they are playing in merely their second one-day World Cup after all – but substandard fielding standards is a prominent concern which needs attention.
