Sri Lanka defeats the Bangladeshi side to preserve their World Cup campaign breathing
The Lankan team will face Pakistan in their decisive final group game
ICC Women's World Cup, Mumbai
Sri Lanka 202 (48.4 overs): Hasini Perera 85 (99); Shorna Akter 3-27
The Bangladeshi team 195-9 (50 overs): Nigar Sultana Joty 77 (98); Chamari Athapaththu 4-42
Sri Lanka win by seven runs
Sri Lanka secured four wickets in the final innings segment to achieve a nail-biting win over their opponents and maintain their narrow aspirations of making it for the World Cup semi-finals intact.
Needing a modest target of 203 on a favorable wicket in Navi Mumbai, the Bangladeshi team wanted nine more runs from the final six deliveries.
Yet, Sri Lanka captain Athapaththu took three wickets in four bowls and de Silva dismissed via run-out Nahida Akter to bring about a dramatic success for the Lankan team.
The victory – the Lankan team's first of the competition after three defeats and two abandoned games against Australia and the Kiwi side – moves them equal on four points with India and New Zealand, who face each other on the coming Thursday.
The Bangladeshi team, in contrast, endured a fifth consecutive defeat since securing victory in their initial game against the Pakistani team and have been knocked out.
While Bangladesh got off to the ideal beginning, with Marufa taking a wicket with the initial ball of the encounter to remove Vishmi Gunaratne, they were rightfully made to pay for a subpar fielding performance.
They provided reprieves to Hasini Perera, who was dropped three times, and the Lankan captain.
While Athapaththu could not make it count, sent back lbw for 46 one ball after being put down by Rabeya, Hasini Perera forced the opposition suffer.
She achieved a debut international 50-run score, accumulating 85 from 99 bowls and contributing to an significant 74-run stand fifth-wicket with De Silva.
Bangladesh, guided by Shorna's three wickets for 27 runs, pulled themselves back to the match, with De Silva's removal in the 34th bowling segment initiating a Sri Lanka collapse from 174 for four to 202 total.
During their chase, the Lankan team's starting bowlers Madara and Prabodhani limited Bangladesh to 23 for one in a disappointing powerplay and they were afterwards brought down to 44 with three wickets lost.
Sharmin and Nigar Sultana Joty restored their score, putting on 82 runs for the fourth wicket before the batter withdrew due to injury for a stubborn 64 in the 36th innings segment.
It was advantage Bangladesh entering the remaining two bowling phases, with merely 12 runs required.
Nevertheless, Dasanayaka sent back Ritu and conceded only three runs before Athapaththu's chaos, with Rabeya Khan, Nahida, captain Joty and Marufa all dismissed as the Lankan team snatched the victory at the very end.
Bangladesh cannot maintain composure - and catches
In the end, it was a game of composure. The highly experienced Lankan captain, who ushered away a handful of teammates as she set herself to deliver the last over, held her nerve. The opposition did not.
There will be plenty of doubts about the team's batting effort. They possibly have been needing 270 or 280 with the Lankan team seeming comfortable on 159-4 in the 30th innings segment, but in contrast the target was considerably smaller.
Yet, Bangladesh displayed insufficient intent from the start, scoring at less than 2.5 scoring rate during the powerplay, suffering a top-order collapse, and ultimately forcing themselves overwhelming to do.
But whatever difficulties there are with their batting, if they had accepted their catches in the fielding department, that 203-run objective would have been substantially smaller.
It took them three tries to break the 72-run partnership second-wicket collaboration, with wicketkeeper Nigar Sultana failing to grab a tough catch behind the stumps to remove Perera on 23 runs before Athapaththu was spared from a return catch possibility against Rabeya Khan.
Perera was dropped once more on her score of 55 and 63, the latter chance going directly to Rubya Haider Jhilik at cover, before ultimately being trapped lbw by Shorna as she tried to up the ante with batting partners falling beside her.
Afterwards in the innings, there was additionally a missed stumping and a missed run-out, although the run-out chance was a little unlucky, with Rubya Haider standing in with the wicketkeeping gloves after an fitness issue to the regular keeper.
Sadly for the team, such fielding problems are not at all a isolated incident. They've dropped 14 catches from a possible 27 chances at this competition and boast the lowest fielding effectiveness (48.1%) of the eight teams.
They are a team who are overall heading in the correct path – they are competing in just their second one-day World Cup after all – but substandard fielding is a prominent problem which requires improvement.
