Sri Lanka overcomes Bangladesh to maintain their tournament hopes ongoing
The Lankan team will confront the Pakistani side in their decisive last group game
Women's Cricket World Cup, Navi Mumbai
Sri Lanka 202 (48.4 overs): Perera 85 (99); Shorna 3-27
The Bangladeshi team 195-9 (50 overs): Nigar Sultana Joty 77 (98); Chamari Athapaththu 4-42
Sri Lanka win by seven runs
The Lankan cricket team claimed four wickets in the decisive over to complete a nail-biting win over their opponents and maintain their faint chances of qualifying for the tournament knockout stage intact.
Needing a modest total of 203 on a good batting surface in the Mumbai stadium, Bangladesh needed nine more runs from the remaining six balls.
However, Sri Lanka captain Athapaththu secured three wickets in four balls and Nilakshi de Silva ran out Nahida to bring about a thrilling success for Sri Lanka.
The triumph – the Lankan team's first of the World Cup after three unsuccessful matches and two no-results against Australia and New Zealand – pushes them tied on four match points with the Indian team and New Zealand, who meet each other on the coming Thursday.
Bangladesh, in contrast, experienced a fifth consecutive loss since securing victory in their tournament opener against Pakistan and have been knocked out.
Even though the Bangladeshi side made the excellent commencement, with Marufa taking a wicket with the first delivery of the game to remove Vishmi Gunaratne, they were deservedly punished for a subpar fielding effort.
They gifted reprieves to Perera, who was spilled three times, and the Lankan captain.
While the Sri Lankan skipper could not capitalise, dismissed lbw for 46 a single bowl after being missed by Rabeya, Hasini Perera made Bangladesh regret it.
She scored a debut international 50-run score, accumulating 85 from 99 balls and contributing to an significant 74-run partnership fifth-wicket association with De Silva.
Bangladesh, guided by Shorna Akter's three wickets for 27 runs, fought themselves back to the contest, with Nilakshi's wicket in the 34th bowling segment initiating a Lankan collapse from 174 with four wickets down to 202 complete.
While batting second, the Lankan team's opening bowlers Madara and Prabodhani contained Bangladesh to 23 with one wicket down in a lacklustre initial phase and they were later diminished to 44 with three wickets lost.
Sharmin and Joty rebuilt their batting effort, contributing 82 runs for the fourth wicket collaboration before Sharmin left the field injured for a determined 64 in the 36th over.
It was advantage Bangladesh heading into the last two bowling phases, with only 12 runs necessary.
However, Dasanayaka sent back Ritu and conceded only three scoring runs before the captain's chaos, with Rabeya Khan, Nahida, captain Joty and Marufa Akter all sent back as the Lankan team seized the victory at the very end.
The Bangladeshi team cannot keep calm - and fielding opportunities
In the end, it was a game of nerve. The very experienced Lankan captain, who ushered away a several of teammates as she prepared to bowl the last over, held hers. Bangladesh could not.
There will be plenty of questions about the team's batting effort. They possibly have been chasing 270 or 280 with Sri Lanka looking comfortable on 159 for four in the 30th bowling phase, but in contrast the required total was much lower.
Yet, the batting side showed little intent from the start, making runs at under 2.5 runs per over during the initial phase, suffering a initial wicket loss, and eventually forcing themselves overwhelming to accomplish.
But no matter what difficulties there are with their batting, if they had taken their opportunities in the field, that 203 total target would have been significantly less.
It required them three attempts to break the 72-run second-wicket, with wicketkeeper Nigar Sultana not managing to take a challenging chance while keeping to dismiss Perera on her score of 23 before the captain was spared from a caught and bowled chance chance against Rabeya.
The batter was missed again on her score of 55 and 63 runs, the latter chance going straight to Rubya Haider Jhilik at cover field, before finally being given out lbw by Shorna Akter as she attempted to increase the tempo with teammates falling beside her.
Later in the innings, there was furthermore a failed stumping and a failed run-out, even though the latter was a little regrettable, with Rubya Haider deputising with the gloves following an injury to the regular keeper.
Sadly for Bangladesh, such fielding issues are far from a single occurrence. They've missed 14 catches from a potential 27 opportunities at this competition and have the lowest fielding effectiveness (48.1 percent) of the eight teams.
They are a team who are overall heading in the correct path – they are competing in just their second ODI World Cup after all – but inadequate fielding is a obvious problem which needs attention.