Sri Lanka defeats the Bangladeshi side to keep their tournament hopes breathing
The Lankan team will confront Pakistan in their must-win last tournament game
Women's Cricket World Cup, Mumbai
The Lankan team 202 (48.4 overs): Hasini Perera 85 (99); Shorna 3-27
The Bangladeshi team 195-9 (50 overs): Joty 77 (98); Chamari Athapaththu 4-42
Sri Lanka win by seven runs
The Lankan cricket team secured four crucial dismissals in the last over to complete a nail-biting win over Bangladesh and preserve their faint hopes of qualifying for the tournament knockout stage intact.
Chasing a below-par total of 203 on a good batting surface in Navi Mumbai, Bangladesh needed nine runs from the remaining six balls.
Nevertheless, Lankan skipper Chamari Athapaththu took three crucial wickets in four balls and Nilakshi de Silva ran out Nahida to bring about a dramatic success for the Lankan team.
The triumph – Sri Lanka's maiden of the competition after three defeats and two no-results against the Australian team and the Kiwi side – elevates them level on four points with India and the New Zealand side, who confront each other on the coming Thursday.
The Bangladeshi team, in contrast, endured a fifth straight defeat since winning their first match against the Pakistani team and have been removed from contention.
Although the Bangladeshi side made the ideal beginning, with Marufa Akter striking with the opening bowl of the game to send back Vishmi Gunaratne, they were appropriately made to pay for a subpar fielding performance.
They gifted reprieves to Hasini Perera, who was missed multiple times, and the Lankan captain.
Even though the Sri Lankan skipper failed to make it count, removed lbw for 46 one ball after being dropped by Rabeya, Perera made Bangladesh regret it.
She registered a first international 50-run score, accumulating 85 from 99 bowls and sharing an crucial 74-run stand fifth-wicket with De Silva.
Bangladesh, led by Shorna's impressive bowling figures, pulled themselves back to the match, with De Silva's wicket in the 34th innings segment triggering a Sri Lanka downfall from 174-4 to 202 all out.
While batting second, the Lankan team's starting bowlers Madara and Prabodhani limited the opposition to 23 for one in a uninspiring opening overs and they were afterwards brought down to 44 with three wickets lost.
Sharmin and Joty restored their score, adding 82 runs for the fourth wicket stand before the batter left the field injured for a determined 64 in the 36th innings segment.
It was advantage Bangladesh heading into the remaining two innings segments, with just 12 runs required.
However, Dasanayaka dismissed Ritu Moni and gave away only three scoring runs before Athapaththu's decisive intervention, with Rabeya, Nahida Akter, captain Joty and Marufa Akter all removed as Sri Lanka seized the victory at the death.
The Bangladeshi team fail to keep calm - and fielding opportunities
Ultimately, it was a contest of nerve. The very experienced Athapaththu, who ushered away a handful of fellow players as she got ready to deliver the final over, kept hers. Bangladesh failed to.
There will be numerous inquiries about the team's batting display. They might well have been chasing around 270-280 with Sri Lanka seeming comfortable on 159-4 in the 30th over, but in contrast the target was significantly less.
Yet, Bangladesh displayed insufficient aggression from the very beginning, scoring at under 2.5 runs each over during the powerplay, undergoing a initial wicket loss, and eventually forcing themselves overwhelming to do.
But no matter what issues there are with their batting approach, if they had taken their opportunities in the fielding department, that 203 total objective would have been considerably lower.
It needed them three efforts to end the 72-run second-wicket, with wicketkeeper Nigar Sultana failing to take a difficult chance while keeping to send back Hasini Perera on her score of 23 before the captain survived from a caught and bowled chance against Rabeya.
Perera was spilled further on her score of 55 and 63, the final opportunity traveling directly to Jhilik at cover position, before eventually being given out leg before wicket by Shorna Akter as she attempted to accelerate the scoring with batting partners being dismissed near her.
Subsequently in the innings, there was also a missed stumping and a failed run-out, even though the run-out chance was a little unfortunate, with Rubya Haider deputising with the wicketkeeping gloves following an physical problem to the regular keeper.
Unfortunately for Bangladesh, such fielding problems are far from a one-off. They've failed to catch 14 catches from a possible 27 at this tournament and display the poorest catching success rate (48.1%) of the participating teams.
They are a squad who are typically progressing in the right direction – they are competing in only their second one-day World Cup after all – but inadequate fielding is a glaring problem which requires improvement.
