The Lankan team defeats the Bangladeshi side to keep their World Cup tournament hopes ongoing
The Lankan team will confront Pakistan in their decisive last group encounter
ICC Women's World Cup, Navi Mumbai
The Lankan team 202 (48.4 overs): Perera 85 (99); Shorna Akter 3-27
Bangladesh 195-9 (50 overs): Nigar Sultana Joty 77 (98); Athapaththu 4-42
Sri Lanka win by seven runs
The Lankan cricket team took four wickets in the last innings segment to seal a thrilling win over their opponents and maintain their slim aspirations of qualifying for the tournament knockout stage intact.
Chasing a below-par score of 203 on a favorable wicket in the Mumbai stadium, the Bangladeshi team wanted nine additional runs from the last six bowls.
Nevertheless, Lankan skipper Chamari Athapaththu secured three crucial wickets in four bowls and de Silva ran out Nahida to achieve a thrilling victory for the Lankan team.
The triumph – Sri Lanka's first of the tournament after three defeats and two washed-out matches against the Australian team and New Zealand – pushes them level on four tournament points with India and New Zealand, who meet each other on Thursday.
The Bangladeshi team, in contrast, endured a fifth consecutive defeat since securing victory in their tournament opener against the Pakistani team and have been eliminated.
While Bangladesh got off to the excellent commencement, with Marufa striking with the opening bowl of the game to dismiss Gunaratne, they were deservedly made to pay for a poor fielding effort.
They provided lifelines to Perera, who was dropped on three occasions, and the Lankan captain.
Although Athapaththu failed to capitalise, dismissed leg before wicket for 46 a single bowl after being dropped by Rabeya, Hasini Perera forced the opposition regret it.
She achieved a debut international fifty, making 85 from 99 bowls and sharing an important 74-run fifth-wicket collaboration with Nilakshi de Silva.
The Bangladeshi team, led by Shorna Akter's three wickets for 27 runs, fought themselves back to the contest, with De Silva's dismissal in the 34th over causing a Lankan collapse from 174-4 to 202 total.
While batting second, the Lankan team's initial pace attack Madara and Prabodhani limited the opposition to 23 with one wicket down in a lacklustre opening overs and they were later brought down to 44-3.
Sharmin Akter and Joty rebuilt their batting effort, adding 82 for the fourth wicket collaboration before the batter left the field injured for a resolute 64 in the 36th bowling phase.
It was in favor of the chasing team approaching the last two bowling phases, with merely 12 runs needed.
Nevertheless, Dasanayaka sent back Ritu Moni and conceded merely three runs before Athapaththu's chaos, with Rabeya Khan, Nahida, captain Joty and Marufa all sent back as Sri Lanka grabbed the victory at the very end.
The Bangladeshi team fail to hold nerve - and fielding opportunities
Finally, it was a match of nerves. The seasoned Athapaththu, who directed away a few of team-mates as she set herself to deliver the final over, held hers. Bangladesh could not.
There will be many doubts about the team's batting display. They could easily have been chasing 270 to 280 with Sri Lanka seeming settled on 159-4 in the 30th bowling phase, but in contrast the target was much lower.
Yet, Bangladesh displayed insufficient purpose from the start, accumulating runs at under 2.5 scoring rate during the powerplay, experiencing a initial wicket loss, and finally forcing themselves overwhelming to do.
But no matter what problems there are with their batting lineup, if they had accepted their catches in the field, that 203-run objective would have been substantially smaller.
It needed them three efforts to terminate the 72-run second-wicket, with wicketkeeper Nigar Sultana not managing to take a challenging chance behind the stumps to dismiss Perera on 23 runs before the captain was spared from a caught and bowled chance against Rabeya Khan.
The batter was missed further on 55 runs and 63, the last attempt going right to Rubya Haider Jhilik at cover, before finally being dismissed lbw by Shorna Akter as she sought to accelerate the scoring with partners getting out near her.
Subsequently in the game, there was also a failed stumping and a failed run-out, even though the run-out chance was a little regrettable, with Rubya Haider deputising with the keeping duties following an injury to the regular keeper.
Sadly for the team, such fielding woes are nowhere near a one-off. They've missed 14 catches from a available 27 at this tournament and have the worst catching success rate (48.1 percent) of the competing sides.
They are a side who are typically moving in the right direction – they are competing in only their second 50-over World Cup in the end – but substandard fielding performance is a glaring issue which requires focus.
