The Lankan team defeats Bangladesh to preserve their World Cup campaign ongoing
The Lankan team will meet the Pakistani side in their crucial final group encounter
ICC Women's World Cup, Mumbai
Sri Lanka 202 (48.4 overs): Perera 85 (99); Shorna Akter 3-27
The Bangladeshi team 195-9 (50 overs): Joty 77 (98); Chamari Athapaththu 4-42
The Lankan side win by seven runs margin
The Lankan cricket team secured four crucial dismissals in the last over to seal a heart-stopping victory over Bangladesh and preserve their narrow hopes of making it for the World Cup semi-finals intact.
Needing a modest score of 203 on a good batting surface in Navi Mumbai, Bangladesh wanted nine additional runs from the remaining six balls.
However, Sri Lanka captain Chamari Athapaththu took three important dismissals in four balls and de Silva ran out Nahida Akter to secure a dramatic win for the Lankan team.
The triumph – the Lankan team's maiden of the World Cup after three unsuccessful matches and two no-results against Australia and New Zealand – elevates them tied on four tournament points with the Indian team and the New Zealand side, who face each other on the coming Thursday.
Bangladesh, in contrast, suffered a fifth successive defeat since securing victory in their initial game against the Pakistani team and have been removed from contention.
While the Bangladeshi side made the ideal beginning, with Marufa Akter striking with the initial ball of the game to dismiss Gunaratne, they were rightfully made to pay for a subpar fielding performance.
They gifted second chances to Perera, who was dropped three times, and the Lankan captain.
Even though the Sri Lankan skipper was unable to make it count, dismissed lbw for 46 just one delivery after being missed by Rabeya, Perera forced Bangladesh regret it.
She achieved a debut international fifty, accumulating 85 from 99 deliveries and building an significant 74-run partnership fifth-wicket collaboration with De Silva.
The Bangladeshi team, guided by Shorna Akter's three wickets for 27 runs, pulled themselves back into the match, with De Silva's removal in the 34th bowling segment initiating a Sri Lanka downfall from 174 for four to 202 complete.
In reply, Sri Lanka's initial pace attack Malki Madara and Prabodhani limited Bangladesh to 23 with one wicket down in a lacklustre initial phase and they were afterwards brought down to 44-3.
Sharmin Akter and Joty reconstructed their score, contributing 82 runs for the fourth wicket collaboration before Sharmin retired hurt for a determined 64 in the 36th over.
It was in favor of Bangladesh approaching the remaining two innings segments, with just 12 additional runs required.
Yet, Dasanayaka removed Ritu and gave away just three scoring runs before the captain's chaos, with Rabeya, Nahida, skipper Joty and Marufa all sent back as the Lankan team seized the victory at the final moment.
Bangladesh cannot maintain composure - and catches
Finally, it was a contest of nerves. The highly experienced Lankan captain, who directed away a few of team-mates as she prepared to bowl the final over, kept hers. Bangladesh failed to.
There will be plenty of doubts about the team's batting effort. They could easily have been chasing 270 or 280 with Sri Lanka appearing comfortable on 159 for four in the 30th over, but instead the chase was significantly less.
However, Bangladesh showed little aggression from the very beginning, making runs at below 2.5 scoring rate during the powerplay, undergoing a initial wicket loss, and finally forcing themselves too much to do.
But whatever problems there are with their batting lineup, if they had seized their catches in the field, that 203 total objective would have been considerably lower.
It needed them three efforts to end the 72-run partnership second-wicket collaboration, with keeper Joty not managing to hold a difficult chance behind the stumps to remove Hasini Perera on 23 runs before the captain was spared from a caught and bowled opportunity against Rabeya.
The batter was dropped further on 55 runs and her score of 63, the final opportunity traveling directly to Jhilik at cover field, before ultimately being trapped leg before wicket by Shorna Akter as she attempted to increase the tempo with batting partners falling near her.
Subsequently in the innings, there was additionally a failed stumping and a run-out opportunity lost, although the run-out chance was a slightly regrettable, with Rubya Haider deputising with the wicketkeeping gloves due to an injury to Joty.
Sadly for the team, such fielding problems are not at all a isolated incident. They've failed to catch 14 opportunities from a available 27 opportunities at this tournament and boast the worst catching success rate (less than 50%) of the participating teams.
They are a team who are typically heading in the proper way – they are playing in just their second ODI World Cup in the end – but poor fielding is a obvious issue which requires attention.
