The Lankan team overcomes the Bangladeshi side to maintain their World Cup tournament hopes ongoing
The Lankan team will face Pakistan in their must-win final group match
ICC Women's World Cup, Navi Mumbai
The Lankan team 202 (48.4 overs): Hasini Perera 85 (99); Shorna Akter 3-27
Bangladesh 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 final innings segment to achieve a nail-biting victory over their opponents and preserve their faint aspirations of making it for the tournament knockout stage alive.
Needing a below-par total of 203 on a favorable wicket in the Mumbai stadium, Bangladesh needed nine more runs from the remaining six deliveries.
Yet, Lankan skipper Athapaththu claimed three crucial wickets in four balls and de Silva ran out Nahida Akter to bring about a dramatic success for Sri Lanka.
The triumph – Sri Lanka's first of the World Cup after three defeats and two washed-out matches against Australia and New Zealand – elevates them level on four points with the Indian team and New Zealand, who face each other on Thursday.
Bangladesh, on the other hand, endured a fifth successive defeat since securing victory in their first match against the Pakistani team and have been eliminated.
While Bangladesh got off to the perfect start, with Marufa taking a wicket with the first delivery of the game to dismiss Vishmi Gunaratne, they were appropriately penalized for a poor fielding performance.
They provided reprieves to Perera, who was dropped on three occasions, and the Lankan captain.
While the Sri Lankan skipper was unable to make it count, removed lbw for 46 a single bowl after being missed by Rabeya Khan, Perera forced the opposition regret it.
She achieved a maiden international fifty, accumulating 85 from 99 bowls and building an significant 74-run fifth-wicket collaboration with Nilakshi de Silva.
Bangladesh, spearheaded by Shorna's 3-27, pulled themselves back into the game, with Nilakshi's wicket in the 34th over causing a Sri Lanka downfall from 174-4 to 202 all out.
In reply, the Lankan team's opening bowlers Madara and Prabodhani limited Bangladesh to 23-1 in a disappointing opening overs and they were later brought down to 44 for three.
Sharmin and Nigar Sultana Joty reconstructed their innings, putting on an 82-run partnership for the fourth wicket stand before the batter left the field injured for a resolute 64 in the 36th over.
It was leaning toward Bangladesh approaching the final two bowling phases, with only 12 more runs needed.
Nevertheless, Dasanayaka removed Ritu and allowed merely three runs before the captain's chaos, with Rabeya Khan, Nahida, captain Joty and Marufa Akter all removed as Sri Lanka grabbed the triumph at the final moment.
Bangladesh cannot keep calm - and catches
In the end, it was a game of composure. The highly experienced Athapaththu, who directed away a handful of team-mates as she prepared to deliver the final over, maintained her nerve. Bangladesh failed to.
There will be plenty of questions about Bangladesh's batting effort. They possibly have been chasing around 270-280 with Sri Lanka seeming settled on 159-4 in the 30th innings segment, but in contrast the target was significantly less.
However, Bangladesh showed little aggression from the start, accumulating runs at below 2.5 scoring rate during the powerplay, undergoing a early batting collapse, and finally making themselves too much to accomplish.
But no matter what difficulties there are with their batting approach, if they had accepted their catches in the field, that 203 total target would have been considerably less.
It took them three efforts to terminate the 72-run partnership second-wicket association, with wicketkeeper Nigar Sultana being unable to take a tough chance as wicketkeeper to send back Hasini Perera on 23 runs before Athapaththu got a reprieve from a caught and bowled chance possibility against Rabeya Khan.
The batter was dropped further on 55 and 63 runs, the final opportunity flying right to Rubya Haider Jhilik at cover field, before eventually being dismissed leg before wicket by Shorna Akter as she attempted to accelerate the scoring with partners falling near her.
Subsequently in the batting effort, there was additionally a failed stumping and a missed run-out, while the run-out chance was a little unlucky, with Rubya Haider substituting with the gloves after an physical problem to Joty.
Unfortunately for Bangladesh, such fielding problems are not at all a isolated incident. They've missed 14 chances from a available 27 chances at this competition and display the lowest catch efficiency (48.1 percent) of the competing sides.
They are a squad who are overall progressing in the correct path – they are participating in just their second 50-over World Cup after all – but poor fielding standards is a obvious concern which demands focus.