Sri Lanka defeats the Bangladeshi side to maintain their World Cup campaign alive
The Lankan team will confront Pakistan in their must-win final group game
Women's Cricket World Cup, Mumbai
The Lankan team 202 (48.4 overs): Hasini Perera 85 (99); Shorna 3-27
Bangladesh 195-9 (50 overs): Nigar Sultana Joty 77 (98); Athapaththu 4-42
The Lankan side emerge victorious by seven runs margin
The Lankan cricket team took four crucial dismissals in the decisive innings segment to achieve a thrilling win over Bangladesh and preserve their faint hopes of qualifying for the tournament knockout stage intact.
Chasing a modest score of 203 on a good batting surface in the Mumbai stadium, the Bangladeshi team needed nine runs from the last six bowls.
Yet, Sri Lanka captain Athapaththu claimed three crucial wickets in four balls and Nilakshi de Silva ran out Nahida Akter to achieve a dramatic success for the Lankan team.
The triumph – Sri Lanka's first of the competition after three defeats and two no-results against Australia and the Kiwi side – elevates them tied on four match points with the Indian team and New Zealand, who meet each other on Thursday.
The Bangladeshi team, however, experienced a fifth consecutive defeat since winning their tournament opener against Pakistan and have been removed from contention.
Even though the Bangladeshi side got off to the excellent commencement, with Marufa Akter taking a wicket with the opening bowl of the encounter to send back Gunaratne, they were deservedly penalized for a disappointing fielding performance.
They gifted reprieves to Perera, who was dropped three times, and the Lankan captain.
While Athapaththu could not make it count, dismissed leg before wicket for 46 one ball after being dropped by Rabeya Khan, Hasini Perera made Bangladesh pay.
She registered a first international half-century, accumulating 85 from 99 bowls and sharing an important 74-run partnership fifth-wicket collaboration with Nilakshi de Silva.
The Bangladeshi team, led by Shorna's 3-27, dragged themselves back to the game, with Nilakshi's wicket in the 34th bowling segment causing a Lankan downfall from 174-4 to 202 complete.
In reply, Sri Lanka's opening bowlers Madara and Prabodhani limited the opposition to 23-1 in a disappointing powerplay and they were later diminished to 44-3.
Sharmin and Nigar Sultana Joty reconstructed their innings, putting on 82 for the fourth wicket stand before Sharmin retired hurt for a resolute 64 in the 36th bowling phase.
It was advantage Bangladesh entering the last two bowling phases, with just 12 additional runs required.
Yet, Sugandika Dasanayaka sent back Ritu Moni and conceded merely three scoring runs before Athapaththu's chaos, with Rabeya, Nahida Akter, captain Joty and Marufa all sent back as Sri Lanka snatched the victory at the death.
Bangladesh cannot maintain composure - and fielding opportunities
In the end, it was a match of nerve. The seasoned Lankan captain, who ushered away a handful of team-mates as she set herself to bowl the decisive over, maintained her composure. Bangladesh did not.
There will be many doubts about the team's batting performance. They could easily have been chasing 270 to 280 with Sri Lanka looking at ease on 159 for four in the 30th bowling phase, but in contrast the chase was considerably smaller.
Nevertheless, Bangladesh lacked intent from the very beginning, accumulating runs at less than 2.5 runs per over during the initial phase, experiencing a early batting collapse, and ultimately leaving themselves too much to accomplish.
But whatever problems there are with their batting approach, if they had accepted their catches in the fielding area, that 203-run goal would have been substantially lower.
It needed them three efforts to break the 72-run stand second-wicket collaboration, with keeper Joty not managing to grab a tough catch behind the stumps to remove Hasini Perera on 23 before Athapaththu was spared from a caught and bowled opportunity against Rabeya.
Perera was missed once more on 55 and 63, the latter chance flying straight to Jhilik at cover field, before finally being dismissed leg before wicket by Shorna as she attempted to accelerate the scoring with teammates falling around her.
Later in the batting effort, there was furthermore a failed stumping and a run-out opportunity lost, although the second one was a little unfortunate, with Rubya Haider standing in with the wicketkeeping gloves due to an fitness issue to the regular keeper.
Unfortunately for Bangladesh, such fielding issues are not at all a single occurrence. They've failed to catch 14 opportunities from a available 27 opportunities at this competition and display the poorest catch efficiency (less than 50%) of the participating teams.
They are a side who are typically heading in the right direction – they are participating in only their second 50-over World Cup ultimately – but poor fielding performance is a prominent concern which requires focus.
