Sri Lanka beats Bangladesh to preserve their World Cup campaign breathing
The Lankan team will face the Pakistani side in their crucial final tournament encounter
Women's Cricket World Cup, Navi Mumbai
Sri Lanka 202 (48.4 overs): Perera 85 (99); Shorna Akter 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 claimed four crucial dismissals in the final over to seal a heart-stopping victory over Bangladesh and preserve their faint chances of qualifying for the World Cup semi-finals alive.
Needing a below-par total of 203 on a batting-friendly pitch in the Mumbai stadium, the Bangladeshi team wanted nine additional runs from the final six bowls.
Nevertheless, Lankan skipper Chamari Athapaththu took three important dismissals in four balls and Nilakshi de Silva ran out Nahida Akter to bring about a dramatic win for Sri Lanka.
The triumph – Sri Lanka's maiden of the tournament after three losses and two washed-out matches against the Australian team and New Zealand – pushes them equal on four points with India and New Zealand, who face each other on Thursday.
Bangladesh, in contrast, experienced a fifth consecutive loss since winning their initial game against the Pakistani team and have been eliminated.
Although the Bangladeshi side made the perfect start, with Marufa Akter taking a wicket with the initial ball of the encounter to remove Vishmi Gunaratne, they were appropriately punished for a poor fielding performance.
They provided lifelines to Perera, who was missed on three occasions, and the Lankan captain.
Even though the Sri Lankan skipper was unable to make it count, dismissed lbw for 46 one ball after being dropped by Rabeya, Perera made Bangladesh suffer.
She achieved a debut international 50-run score, making 85 from 99 deliveries and sharing an crucial 74-run fifth-wicket association with De Silva.
Bangladesh, guided by Shorna Akter's 3-27, dragged themselves back to the game, with De Silva's dismissal in the 34th innings segment causing a Sri Lanka downfall from 174-4 to 202 complete.
In reply, the Lankan team's starting bowlers Madara and Udeshika Prabodhani contained Bangladesh to 23 with one wicket down in a lacklustre initial phase and they were later brought down to 44-3.
Sharmin and Joty restored their score, adding an 82-run partnership for the fourth wicket stand before the batter withdrew due to injury for a stubborn 64 in the 36th innings segment.
It was in favor of Bangladesh approaching the remaining two overs, with just 12 more runs needed.
Yet, Sugandika Dasanayaka dismissed Ritu and gave away merely three scoring runs before Athapaththu's chaos, with Rabeya, Nahida Akter, captain Joty and Marufa all removed as Sri Lanka grabbed the victory at the final moment.
Bangladesh cannot maintain composure - and catches
Ultimately, it was a match of nerve. The highly experienced Athapaththu, who moved aside a several of teammates as she got ready to bowl the decisive over, maintained hers. The opposition failed to.
There will be plenty of questions about the team's batting effort. They might well have been needing 270 to 280 with Sri Lanka looking settled on 159-4 in the 30th innings segment, but rather the chase was significantly less.
However, the batting side displayed insufficient aggression from the start, accumulating runs at under 2.5 runs each over during the opening overs, experiencing a top-order collapse, and eventually making themselves too much to accomplish.
But whatever problems there are with their batting, if they had taken their opportunities in the fielding department, that 203-run goal would have been substantially less.
It needed them three efforts to terminate the 72-run partnership second-wicket association, with wicketkeeper Joty being unable to take a tough catch while keeping to dismiss Perera on 23 runs before the captain got a reprieve from a caught and bowled chance opportunity against Rabeya.
Perera was missed again on 55 and 63, the final opportunity going right to Rubya Haider Jhilik at cover field, before finally being dismissed leg before wicket by Shorna as she sought to increase the tempo with teammates being dismissed beside her.
Afterwards in the batting effort, there was furthermore a stumping chance missed and a run-out opportunity lost, while the second one was a somewhat unfortunate, with Rubya Haider substituting with the wicketkeeping gloves after an physical problem to Joty.
Unfortunately for the team, such fielding problems are far from a one-off. They've missed 14 opportunities from a potential 27 chances at this tournament and boast the poorest catch efficiency (48.1%) of the participating teams.
They are a team who are generally progressing in the proper way – they are participating in only their second 50-over World Cup after all – but inadequate fielding is a obvious problem which demands focus.
