The Lankan team beats Bangladesh to maintain their campaign alive
The Lankan team will meet the Pakistani side in their must-win final group game
ICC Women's World Cup, Navi 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
The Lankan cricket team secured four crucial dismissals in the decisive innings segment to complete a thrilling triumph over their opponents and preserve their slim aspirations of making it for the World Cup semi-finals intact.
Pursuing a attainable total of 203 on a batting-friendly pitch in Navi Mumbai, Bangladesh needed nine runs from the final six balls.
However, Lankan skipper Chamari Athapaththu took three wickets in four deliveries and de Silva dismissed via run-out Nahida Akter to secure a dramatic success for Sri Lanka.
The triumph – Sri Lanka's maiden of the World Cup after three losses and two washed-out matches against Australia and New Zealand – moves them tied on four tournament points with India and New Zealand, who face each other on the coming Thursday.
The Bangladeshi team, in contrast, suffered a fifth straight setback since securing victory in their tournament opener against Pakistan and have been removed from contention.
Even though Bangladesh made the ideal beginning, with Marufa taking a wicket with the initial ball of the game to remove Gunaratne, they were deservedly penalized for a disappointing fielding display.
They gifted second chances to Hasini Perera, who was spilled on three occasions, and the Lankan captain.
Although the Sri Lankan skipper failed to capitalise, sent back lbw for 46 a single bowl after being missed by Rabeya, Hasini Perera forced Bangladesh pay.
She scored a first international 50-run score, making 85 from 99 bowls and building an significant 74-run fifth-wicket collaboration with De Silva.
The Bangladeshi team, guided by Shorna's three wickets for 27 runs, dragged themselves back in the match, with Nilakshi's wicket in the 34th over initiating a Lankan collapse from 174 for four to 202 total.
In reply, the Lankan team's initial pace attack Madara and Udeshika Prabodhani restricted Bangladesh to 23 for one in a disappointing initial phase and they were subsequently brought down to 44 with three wickets lost.
Sharmin Akter and Joty rebuilt their score, contributing an 82-run partnership for the fourth wicket before the batter withdrew due to injury for a stubborn 64 in the 36th innings segment.
It was in favor of Bangladesh entering the last two innings segments, with merely 12 more runs needed.
However, Sugandika Dasanayaka removed Ritu and conceded just three scoring runs before the captain's decisive intervention, with Rabeya Khan, Nahida Akter, skipper Joty and Marufa all sent back as Sri Lanka seized the triumph at the very end.
The Bangladeshi team are unable to maintain composure - and fielding opportunities
Finally, it was a match of nerves. The very experienced Athapaththu, who ushered away a few of fellow players as she got ready to deliver the decisive over, kept her nerve. Bangladesh failed to.
There will be plenty of doubts about the team's batting effort. They might well have been needing around 270-280 with Sri Lanka seeming settled on 159 for four in the 30th innings segment, but instead the required total was considerably smaller.
Nevertheless, Bangladesh lacked aggression from the start, scoring at less than 2.5 runs per over during the powerplay, experiencing a early batting collapse, and ultimately forcing themselves excessive to achieve.
But no matter what difficulties there are with their batting, if they had accepted their opportunities in the fielding department, that 203-run target objective would have been substantially smaller.
It took them three attempts to end the 72-run partnership second-wicket, with keeper Nigar Sultana failing to take a challenging catch while keeping to send back Perera on 23 runs before the captain survived from a caught and bowled chance against Rabeya.
Perera was dropped once more on her score of 55 and 63 runs, the last attempt going right to Rubya Haider Jhilik at cover field, before finally being given out leg before wicket by Shorna as she tried to accelerate the scoring with teammates getting out beside her.
Afterwards in the batting effort, there was also a missed stumping and a failed run-out, although the second one was a somewhat unfortunate, with Rubya Haider substituting with the keeping duties due to an fitness issue to Joty.
Sadly for the team, such fielding problems are far from a isolated incident. They've failed to catch 14 catches from a potential 27 chances at this World Cup and have the lowest catching success rate (48.1 percent) of the eight teams.
They are a side who are generally moving in the correct path – they are participating in merely their second ODI World Cup after all – but poor fielding performance is a prominent issue which demands focus.
