Sri Lanka beats Bangladesh to keep their tournament hopes alive
The Lankan team will face Pakistan in their must-win final group match
Women's Cricket World Cup, Navi Mumbai
The Lankan team 202 (48.4 overs): 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 margin
The Lankan cricket team took four wickets in the final over to seal a thrilling triumph over their opponents and preserve their faint aspirations of qualifying for the World Cup semi-finals ongoing.
Needing a below-par target of 203 on a favorable wicket in Navi Mumbai, Bangladesh wanted nine runs from the remaining six deliveries.
Nevertheless, Lankan skipper Chamari Athapaththu took three important dismissals in four deliveries and de Silva ran out Nahida Akter to achieve a exciting success for the Lankan team.
The victory – Sri Lanka's initial of the tournament after three defeats and two abandoned games against Australia and the Kiwi side – pushes them level on four tournament points with India and New Zealand, who confront each other on Thursday.
The Bangladeshi team, on the other hand, experienced a fifth consecutive loss since winning their first match against the Pakistani team and have been removed from contention.
Even though the Bangladeshi side made the ideal beginning, with Marufa Akter striking with the opening bowl of the game to remove Vishmi Gunaratne, they were rightfully punished for a subpar fielding display.
They gifted lifelines to Hasini Perera, who was spilled on three occasions, and Athapaththu.
While Athapaththu was unable to take advantage, dismissed leg before wicket for 46 a single bowl after being dropped by Rabeya Khan, Perera made Bangladesh suffer.
She registered a maiden international fifty, accumulating 85 from 99 deliveries and building an important 74-run fifth-wicket collaboration with De Silva.
Bangladesh, spearheaded by Shorna's 3-27, pulled themselves back into the game, with De Silva's dismissal in the 34th over causing a Sri Lanka downfall from 174-4 to 202 all out.
While batting second, Sri Lanka's opening bowlers Malki Madara and Udeshika Prabodhani restricted Bangladesh to 23 with one wicket down in a disappointing initial phase and they were later reduced to 44-3.
Sharmin Akter and Joty rebuilt their score, adding 82 runs for the fourth wicket stand before Sharmin withdrew due to injury for a determined 64 in the 36th over.
It was in favor of the chasing team approaching the final two bowling phases, with only 12 more runs required.
However, Dasanayaka removed Ritu Moni and gave away only three scoring runs before Athapaththu's decisive intervention, with Rabeya, Nahida, skipper Joty and Marufa all dismissed as Sri Lanka snatched the triumph at the very end.
Bangladesh cannot maintain composure - and fielding opportunities
Finally, it was a contest of composure. The seasoned Athapaththu, who ushered away a several of team-mates as she prepared to bowl the final over, held her nerve. The opposition failed to.
There will be plenty of questions about Bangladesh's batting performance. They could easily have been pursuing 270 to 280 with the Lankan team looking comfortable on 159-4 in the 30th over, but instead the target was considerably smaller.
Yet, the batting side showed little purpose from the start, accumulating runs at under 2.5 runs per over during the powerplay, undergoing a early batting collapse, and ultimately forcing themselves overwhelming to achieve.
But no matter what difficulties there are with their batting, if they had seized their chances in the field, that 203-run target target would have been significantly smaller.
It took them three efforts to break the 72-run partnership second-wicket, with wicketkeeper Joty not managing to grab a difficult opportunity while keeping to remove Hasini Perera on her score of 23 before Athapaththu was spared from a caught and bowled opportunity against Rabeya.
Perera was missed further on 55 runs and 63 runs, the final opportunity flying right to Rubya Haider Jhilik at cover, before finally being dismissed leg before wicket by Shorna Akter as she sought to increase the tempo with teammates being dismissed around her.
Subsequently in the batting effort, there was furthermore a missed stumping and a missed run-out, while the run-out chance was a somewhat unfortunate, with Jhilik substituting with the keeping duties due to an physical problem to the regular keeper.
Unfortunately for the team, such fielding problems are nowhere near a one-off. They've dropped 14 opportunities from a potential 27 at this World Cup and have the worst catch efficiency (48.1%) of the competing sides.
They are a squad who are generally progressing in the proper way – they are competing in only their second one-day World Cup ultimately – but poor fielding performance is a glaring problem which needs attention.
