Sri Lanka overcomes Bangladesh to preserve their tournament hopes alive
The Lankan team will meet the Pakistani side in their decisive final tournament encounter
ICC Women's World Cup, Mumbai
Sri Lanka 202 (48.4 overs): Hasini Perera 85 (99); Shorna Akter 3-27
The Bangladeshi team 195-9 (50 overs): Joty 77 (98); Chamari Athapaththu 4-42
Sri Lanka emerge victorious by seven runs margin
Sri Lanka secured four crucial dismissals in the decisive innings segment to achieve a nail-biting win over Bangladesh and maintain their faint aspirations of qualifying for the tournament knockout stage alive.
Chasing a modest total of 203 on a good batting surface in the Mumbai stadium, the Bangladeshi team wanted nine runs from the final six balls.
Yet, Sri Lanka captain Athapaththu took three important dismissals in four deliveries and de Silva dismissed via run-out Nahida to achieve a thrilling win for the Lankan team.
The victory – Sri Lanka's initial of the World Cup after three unsuccessful matches and two no-results against Australia and New Zealand – pushes them equal on four tournament points with India and New Zealand, who confront each other on the coming Thursday.
The Bangladeshi team, on the other hand, suffered a fifth consecutive defeat since securing victory in their first match against Pakistan and have been removed from contention.
While Bangladesh got off to the ideal beginning, with Marufa striking with the opening bowl of the encounter to dismiss Gunaratne, they were rightfully penalized for a subpar fielding display.
They offered lifelines to Perera, who was spilled multiple times, and the Lankan captain.
Even though Athapaththu failed to make it count, sent back leg before wicket for 46 a single bowl after being put down by Rabeya Khan, Perera made the opposition suffer.
She achieved a first international half-century, scoring 85 from 99 bowls and building an significant 74-run partnership fifth-wicket with Nilakshi de Silva.
Bangladesh, guided by Shorna's three wickets for 27 runs, pulled themselves back in the game, with De Silva's wicket in the 34th bowling segment triggering a Sri Lanka collapse from 174-4 to 202 all out.
In reply, the Lankan team's starting bowlers Madara and Udeshika Prabodhani contained Bangladesh to 23 with one wicket down in a uninspiring opening overs and they were later diminished to 44 with three wickets lost.
Sharmin Akter and Joty restored their innings, putting on 82 for the fourth wicket before the batter left the field injured for a resolute 64 in the 36th innings segment.
It was in favor of Bangladesh heading into the remaining two bowling phases, with just 12 more runs needed.
Yet, Dasanayaka removed Ritu and conceded just three runs before the captain's dramatic spell, with Rabeya, Nahida, skipper Joty and Marufa Akter all sent back as Sri Lanka seized the triumph at the death.
Bangladesh cannot keep calm - and fielding opportunities
Ultimately, it was a contest of nerves. The highly experienced Lankan captain, who directed away a several of teammates as she prepared to bowl the last over, kept her composure. The opposition could not.
There will be many doubts about the team's batting performance. They could easily have been pursuing 270 or 280 with Sri Lanka looking comfortable on 159-4 in the 30th over, but in contrast the target was considerably smaller.
However, the batting side showed little aggression from the very beginning, making runs at below 2.5 runs each over during the initial phase, undergoing a top-order collapse, and ultimately leaving themselves overwhelming to accomplish.
But whatever issues there are with their batting, if they had taken their opportunities in the fielding department, that 203-run target target would have been considerably lower.
It needed them three attempts to break the 72-run stand second-wicket association, with keeper Joty failing to grab a challenging catch as wicketkeeper to remove Hasini Perera on 23 runs before Athapaththu got a reprieve from a caught and bowled chance possibility against Rabeya Khan.
Perera was dropped again on 55 runs and her score of 63, the final opportunity going right to Jhilik at cover, before eventually being trapped lbw by Shorna Akter as she tried to increase the tempo with partners getting out around her.
Subsequently in the innings, there was additionally a missed stumping and a missed run-out, while the latter was a slightly unfortunate, with Rubya Haider standing in with the gloves following an physical problem to the regular keeper.
Unfortunately for the team, such fielding issues are nowhere near a single occurrence. They've missed 14 chances from a available 27 opportunities at this competition and boast the lowest catching success rate (48.1 percent) of the eight teams.
They are a squad who are generally progressing in the correct path – they are playing in only their second one-day World Cup in the end – but poor fielding standards is a glaring problem which needs focus.
