Sri Lanka beats Bangladesh to keep their World Cup campaign alive
The Lankan team will meet the Pakistani side in their crucial last tournament game
Women's Cricket World Cup, Navi Mumbai
Sri Lanka 202 (48.4 overs): Hasini Perera 85 (99); Shorna Akter 3-27
Bangladesh 195-9 (50 overs): Nigar Sultana Joty 77 (98); Athapaththu 4-42
The Lankan side emerge victorious by seven runs
The Lankan cricket team claimed four crucial dismissals in the last over to seal a thrilling victory over their opponents and preserve their faint chances of qualifying for the tournament knockout stage alive.
Needing a modest total of 203 on a good batting surface in Navi Mumbai, Bangladesh wanted nine runs from the last six bowls.
Yet, Sri Lanka captain Chamari Athapaththu took three crucial wickets in four balls and de Silva ran out Nahida to achieve a exciting win for Sri Lanka.
The victory – Sri Lanka's initial of the competition after three defeats and two no-results against Australia and the Kiwi side – pushes them level on four points with the Indian team and the New Zealand side, who meet each other on the coming Thursday.
The Bangladeshi team, on the other hand, endured a fifth straight setback since winning their tournament opener against Pakistan and have been knocked out.
While Bangladesh got off to the excellent commencement, with Marufa taking a wicket with the opening bowl of the game to dismiss Vishmi Gunaratne, they were deservedly penalized for a subpar fielding display.
They provided reprieves to Hasini Perera, who was missed three times, and the Lankan captain.
Even though the Sri Lankan skipper failed to make it count, sent back lbw for 46 just one delivery after being put down by Rabeya Khan, Perera made the opposition regret it.
She scored a maiden international half-century, accumulating 85 from 99 balls and contributing to an significant 74-run stand fifth-wicket association with Nilakshi de Silva.
The Bangladeshi team, spearheaded by Shorna's 3-27, pulled themselves back to the contest, with De Silva's removal in the 34th over causing a Sri Lanka downfall from 174-4 to 202 all out.
During their chase, the Lankan team's opening bowlers Madara and Prabodhani restricted Bangladesh to 23 with one wicket down in a uninspiring opening overs and they were afterwards diminished to 44 with three wickets lost.
Sharmin Akter and Joty rebuilt their innings, putting on 82 for the fourth wicket stand before the batter withdrew due to injury for a determined 64 in the 36th innings segment.
It was leaning toward Bangladesh approaching the final two bowling phases, with just 12 more runs necessary.
Yet, Dasanayaka dismissed Ritu and allowed merely three runs before the captain's chaos, with Rabeya, Nahida Akter, captain Joty and Marufa Akter all removed as Sri Lanka grabbed the victory at the final moment.
The Bangladeshi team fail to maintain composure - and catches
Ultimately, it was a game of nerve. The seasoned Lankan captain, who directed away a few of teammates as she set herself to bowl the decisive over, maintained her nerve. Bangladesh did not.
There will be many doubts about the team's batting effort. They possibly have been needing 270 to 280 with Sri Lanka appearing comfortable on 159-4 in the 30th bowling phase, but in contrast the chase was considerably smaller.
Nevertheless, Bangladesh displayed insufficient intent from the very beginning, making runs at less than 2.5 runs each over during the powerplay, experiencing a early batting collapse, and eventually making themselves overwhelming to accomplish.
But whatever issues there are with their batting approach, if they had seized their catches in the fielding department, that 203 total target would have been considerably smaller.
It required them three attempts to break the 72-run stand second-wicket collaboration, with keeper Nigar Sultana not managing to hold a difficult chance behind the stumps to dismiss Hasini Perera on 23 runs before the captain survived from a caught and bowled opportunity against Rabeya.
Perera was spilled again on her score of 55 and her score of 63, the latter chance flying directly to Rubya Haider Jhilik at cover position, before eventually being given out leg before wicket by Shorna as she tried to accelerate the scoring with partners falling beside her.
Later in the batting effort, there was additionally a missed stumping and a missed run-out, even though the run-out chance was a somewhat unfortunate, with Rubya Haider standing in with the keeping duties after an fitness issue to Joty.
Regrettably for the team, such fielding problems are not at all a one-off. They've failed to catch 14 catches from a possible 27 opportunities at this tournament and display the poorest fielding effectiveness (48.1 percent) of the participating teams.
They are a team who are typically moving in the right direction – they are playing in just their second ODI World Cup after all – but inadequate fielding performance is a obvious concern which demands attention.
