Sri Lanka defeats Bangladesh to keep their tournament hopes ongoing
The Lankan team will confront Pakistan in their crucial last group match
ICC Women's World Cup, Mumbai
The Lankan team 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 emerge victorious by seven runs
The Lankan cricket team claimed four wickets in the final innings segment to achieve a thrilling victory over their opponents and maintain their narrow hopes of qualifying for the World Cup semi-finals ongoing.
Needing a attainable target of 203 on a good batting surface in the Mumbai stadium, Bangladesh wanted nine runs from the last six balls.
However, Lankan skipper Chamari Athapaththu secured three crucial wickets in four bowls and de Silva ran out Nahida to bring about a exciting success for Sri Lanka.
The triumph – the Lankan team's maiden of the tournament after three losses and two abandoned games against Australia and New Zealand – moves them level on four points with India and the New Zealand side, who confront each other on Thursday.
Bangladesh, on the other hand, experienced a fifth successive loss since securing victory in their initial game against Pakistan and have been removed from contention.
Even though Bangladesh made the excellent commencement, with Marufa Akter taking a wicket with the opening bowl of the match to remove Gunaratne, they were deservedly made to pay for a subpar fielding display.
They gifted second chances to Perera, who was dropped on three occasions, and the Lankan captain.
Although Athapaththu was unable to make it count, removed leg before wicket for 46 one ball after being missed by Rabeya, Hasini Perera made Bangladesh regret it.
She scored a maiden international half-century, accumulating 85 from 99 bowls and sharing an crucial 74-run partnership fifth-wicket with De Silva.
Bangladesh, guided by Shorna's 3-27, fought themselves back in the contest, with Nilakshi's dismissal in the 34th innings segment triggering a Lankan collapse from 174-4 to 202 complete.
While batting second, the Lankan team's starting bowlers Madara and Prabodhani restricted Bangladesh to 23-1 in a lacklustre opening overs and they were afterwards diminished to 44-3.
Sharmin Akter and Joty reconstructed their innings, contributing an 82-run partnership for the fourth wicket collaboration before the batter withdrew due to injury for a stubborn 64 in the 36th over.
It was in favor of Bangladesh entering the remaining two bowling phases, with merely 12 additional runs required.
Yet, Sugandika Dasanayaka sent back Ritu Moni and conceded merely three scoring runs before Athapaththu's decisive intervention, with Rabeya, Nahida, captain Joty and Marufa all sent back as the Lankan team grabbed the victory at the death.
The Bangladeshi team cannot hold nerve - and catches
In the end, it was a contest of composure. The highly experienced Athapaththu, who ushered away a handful of team-mates as she prepared to deliver the decisive over, held her composure. Bangladesh did not.
There will be plenty of doubts about the team's batting performance. They could easily have been pursuing around 270-280 with the Lankan team appearing comfortable on 159 for four in the 30th innings segment, but instead the chase was considerably smaller.
Yet, Bangladesh lacked purpose from ball one, scoring at less than 2.5 runs each over during the initial phase, experiencing a initial wicket loss, and finally forcing themselves excessive to accomplish.
But no matter what problems there are with their batting lineup, if they had taken their catches in the fielding department, that 203-run target goal would have been substantially lower.
It took them three attempts to terminate the 72-run second-wicket association, with keeper Joty being unable to hold a tough chance while keeping to dismiss Hasini Perera on her score of 23 before Athapaththu got a reprieve from a return catch opportunity against Rabeya Khan.
The batter was spilled further on 55 runs and her score of 63, the last attempt going directly to Rubya Haider Jhilik at cover field, before eventually being given out lbw by Shorna Akter as she attempted to increase the tempo with batting partners falling around her.
Subsequently in the game, there was furthermore a missed stumping and a run-out opportunity lost, while the run-out chance was a little regrettable, with Jhilik substituting with the gloves due to an physical problem to the regular keeper.
Regrettably for Bangladesh, such fielding problems are far from a single occurrence. They've dropped 14 catches from a possible 27 opportunities at this competition and display the lowest catch efficiency (48.1 percent) of the participating teams.
They are a squad who are generally progressing in the right direction – they are participating in merely their second one-day World Cup in the end – but poor fielding standards is a obvious problem which demands attention.
