The Lankan team beats the Bangladeshi side to keep their campaign breathing
The Lankan team will face the Pakistani side in their decisive last tournament match
Women's Cricket World Cup, Navi Mumbai
Sri Lanka 202 (48.4 overs): Perera 85 (99); Shorna 3-27
The Bangladeshi team 195-9 (50 overs): Joty 77 (98); Athapaththu 4-42
Sri Lanka win by seven runs
The Lankan cricket team claimed four crucial dismissals in the last over to seal a thrilling win over Bangladesh and preserve their narrow chances of qualifying for the World Cup semi-finals alive.
Pursuing a attainable target of 203 on a good batting surface in the Mumbai stadium, the Bangladeshi team needed nine additional runs from the last six deliveries.
Nevertheless, Lankan skipper Athapaththu secured three wickets in four deliveries and de Silva dismissed via run-out Nahida Akter to secure a exciting win for Sri Lanka.
The win – the Lankan team's first of the tournament after three defeats and two washed-out matches against Australia and the Kiwi side – elevates them tied on four points with the Indian team and the New Zealand side, who confront each other on the coming Thursday.
Bangladesh, on the other hand, experienced a fifth successive defeat since winning their first match against the Pakistani team and have been knocked out.
While the Bangladeshi side got off to the perfect start, with Marufa striking with the first delivery of the game to send back Vishmi Gunaratne, they were deservedly penalized for a disappointing fielding effort.
They provided reprieves to Perera, who was spilled three times, and the Lankan captain.
While Athapaththu was unable to capitalise, sent back lbw for 46 one ball after being missed by Rabeya Khan, Hasini Perera made Bangladesh suffer.
She registered a debut international fifty, accumulating 85 from 99 deliveries and contributing to an important 74-run partnership fifth-wicket association with De Silva.
The Bangladeshi team, led by Shorna's 3-27, pulled themselves back in the contest, with Nilakshi's wicket in the 34th innings segment causing a Sri Lanka batting collapse from 174 with four wickets down to 202 complete.
While batting second, Sri Lanka's starting bowlers Madara and Prabodhani restricted Bangladesh to 23 with one wicket down in a lacklustre initial phase and they were afterwards reduced to 44 for three.
Sharmin and Joty reconstructed their innings, putting on an 82-run partnership for the fourth wicket before the batter retired hurt for a resolute 64 in the 36th bowling phase.
It was in favor of Bangladesh approaching the final two bowling phases, with just 12 more runs needed.
However, Sugandika Dasanayaka dismissed Ritu and gave away merely three runs before Athapaththu's decisive intervention, with Rabeya, Nahida, skipper Joty and Marufa all dismissed as the Lankan team grabbed the triumph at the death.
The Bangladeshi team cannot keep calm - and fielding opportunities
Finally, it was a match of composure. The very experienced Athapaththu, who ushered away a handful of fellow players as she got ready to bowl the decisive over, kept hers. The opposition could not.
There will be many inquiries about Bangladesh's batting effort. They could easily have been chasing 270 to 280 with Sri Lanka seeming comfortable on 159 with four wickets down in the 30th innings segment, but in contrast the target was significantly less.
However, the batting side showed little purpose from the very beginning, making runs at below 2.5 scoring rate during the initial phase, undergoing a top-order collapse, and ultimately forcing themselves excessive to do.
But no matter what difficulties there are with their batting approach, if they had seized their opportunities in the fielding department, that 203-run target objective would have been significantly less.
It needed them three efforts to break the 72-run stand second-wicket collaboration, with wicketkeeper Joty not managing to grab a difficult chance behind the stumps to send back Hasini Perera on her score of 23 before the captain survived from a return catch opportunity against Rabeya Khan.
Perera was dropped further on her score of 55 and her score of 63, the final opportunity flying straight to Rubya Haider Jhilik at cover field, before eventually being given out leg before wicket by Shorna as she attempted to increase the tempo with teammates falling around her.
Subsequently in the batting effort, there was furthermore a failed stumping and a missed run-out, although the latter was a little unfortunate, with Rubya Haider standing in with the gloves following an fitness issue to Joty.
Sadly for the team, such fielding problems are not at all a isolated incident. They've missed 14 chances from a possible 27 opportunities at this World Cup and boast the worst catch efficiency (48.1 percent) of the competing sides.
They are a team who are generally heading in the correct path – they are participating in just their second one-day World Cup in the end – but poor fielding is a glaring concern which needs attention.
