Sri Lanka beats the Bangladeshi side to preserve their World Cup tournament hopes breathing
The Lankan team will face the Pakistani side in their decisive last tournament game
Women's Cricket World Cup, Navi Mumbai
Sri Lanka 202 (48.4 overs): Hasini Perera 85 (99); Shorna 3-27
The Bangladeshi team 195-9 (50 overs): Joty 77 (98); Chamari Athapaththu 4-42
Sri Lanka win by seven runs
Sri Lanka took four wickets in the last innings segment to complete a nail-biting victory over their opponents and maintain their narrow chances of making it for the tournament knockout stage alive.
Chasing a below-par score of 203 on a good batting surface in the Mumbai stadium, Bangladesh required nine runs from the remaining six bowls.
Nevertheless, Lankan skipper Athapaththu took three wickets in four deliveries and Nilakshi de Silva ran out Nahida to bring about a exciting success for Sri Lanka.
The victory – the Lankan team's maiden of the tournament after three defeats and two abandoned games against the Australian team and the Kiwi side – elevates them tied on four match points with India and New Zealand, who confront each other on the coming Thursday.
The Bangladeshi team, in contrast, experienced a fifth successive setback since securing victory in their first match against Pakistan and have been eliminated.
Although the Bangladeshi side made the perfect start, with Marufa Akter taking a wicket with the initial ball of the match to remove Gunaratne, they were appropriately made to pay for a disappointing fielding display.
They provided lifelines to Perera, who was spilled on three occasions, and the Lankan captain.
While Athapaththu could not take advantage, removed lbw for 46 just one delivery after being dropped by Rabeya Khan, Hasini Perera forced the opposition pay.
She achieved a maiden international 50-run score, scoring 85 from 99 bowls and building an crucial 74-run partnership fifth-wicket with De Silva.
The Bangladeshi team, spearheaded by Shorna Akter's impressive bowling figures, dragged themselves back to the game, with De Silva's wicket in the 34th over initiating a Sri Lanka collapse from 174-4 to 202 complete.
During their chase, the Lankan team's opening bowlers Madara and Udeshika Prabodhani restricted the opposition to 23 for one in a uninspiring initial phase and they were later reduced to 44 for three.
Sharmin Akter and Nigar Sultana Joty rebuilt their score, putting on an 82-run partnership for the fourth wicket before the batter retired hurt for a stubborn 64 in the 36th innings segment.
It was advantage Bangladesh entering the last two innings segments, with only 12 additional runs required.
However, Dasanayaka removed Ritu Moni and allowed just three scoring runs before the captain's chaos, with Rabeya Khan, Nahida, captain Joty and Marufa all removed as Sri Lanka seized the victory at the final moment.
Bangladesh are unable to keep calm - and catches
Ultimately, it was a match of nerves. The seasoned Lankan captain, who ushered away a few of team-mates as she prepared to bowl the final over, held her nerve. Bangladesh could not.
There will be many inquiries about Bangladesh's batting display. They could easily have been needing 270 or 280 with the Lankan team seeming comfortable on 159 with four wickets down in the 30th over, but in contrast the chase was considerably smaller.
Yet, the batting side showed little aggression from the start, scoring at below 2.5 runs per over during the opening overs, suffering a top-order collapse, and finally making themselves excessive to accomplish.
But no matter what difficulties there are with their batting, if they had taken their catches in the fielding area, that 203-run target objective would have been considerably lower.
It needed them three efforts to break the 72-run second-wicket, with wicketkeeper Joty not managing to hold a challenging chance behind the stumps to send back Hasini Perera on 23 before Athapaththu survived from a caught and bowled opportunity against Rabeya.
The batter was spilled once more on 55 runs and 63, the final opportunity flying straight to Jhilik at cover position, before finally being trapped lbw by Shorna Akter as she attempted to up the ante with partners getting out near her.
Subsequently in the batting effort, there was furthermore a stumping chance missed and a failed run-out, even though the latter was a slightly unfortunate, with Jhilik standing in with the gloves after an physical problem to the regular keeper.
Unfortunately for Bangladesh, such fielding issues are not at all a one-off. They've failed to catch 14 catches from a available 27 opportunities at this World Cup and boast the lowest catching success rate (less than 50%) of the eight teams.
They are a side who are typically moving in the right direction – they are competing in only their second one-day World Cup in the end – but substandard fielding standards is a obvious problem which demands attention.
