The Lankan team overcomes Bangladesh to preserve their World Cup campaign breathing
The Lankan team will meet Pakistan in their crucial final tournament encounter
Women's Cricket World Cup, Navi Mumbai
The Lankan team 202 (48.4 overs): Perera 85 (99); Shorna Akter 3-27
Bangladesh 195-9 (50 overs): Joty 77 (98); Chamari Athapaththu 4-42
Sri Lanka win by seven runs margin
The Lankan cricket team claimed four wickets in the last over to complete a heart-stopping victory over their opponents and maintain their faint hopes of qualifying for the World Cup semi-finals intact.
Pursuing a attainable target of 203 on a batting-friendly pitch in Navi Mumbai, Bangladesh needed nine additional runs from the remaining six balls.
Yet, Lankan skipper Athapaththu claimed three wickets in four bowls and Nilakshi de Silva dismissed via run-out Nahida to achieve a exciting victory for Sri Lanka.
The win – the Lankan team's initial of the competition after three unsuccessful matches and two abandoned games against Australia and the Kiwi side – elevates them tied on four match points with the Indian team and New Zealand, who meet each other on Thursday.
Bangladesh, on the other hand, experienced a fifth consecutive defeat since securing victory in their first match against Pakistan and have been removed from contention.
Although the Bangladeshi side made the ideal beginning, with Marufa taking a wicket with the initial ball of the encounter to send back Vishmi Gunaratne, they were deservedly penalized for a poor fielding performance.
They gifted reprieves to Perera, who was missed three times, and the Lankan captain.
While the Sri Lankan skipper could not make it count, removed leg before wicket for 46 a single bowl after being dropped by Rabeya, Hasini Perera forced the opposition suffer.
She registered a debut international 50-run score, accumulating 85 from 99 bowls and building an important 74-run fifth-wicket association with De Silva.
Bangladesh, led by Shorna's impressive bowling figures, dragged themselves back to the game, with Nilakshi's wicket in the 34th innings segment causing a Lankan downfall from 174 with four wickets down to 202 total.
During their chase, Sri Lanka's opening bowlers Malki Madara and Udeshika Prabodhani limited the opposition to 23 for one in a lacklustre opening overs and they were later diminished to 44 with three wickets lost.
Sharmin Akter and Nigar Sultana Joty rebuilt their score, adding 82 runs for the fourth wicket collaboration before the batter left the field injured for a resolute 64 in the 36th over.
It was leaning toward the chasing team heading into the remaining two overs, with merely 12 additional runs required.
However, Sugandika Dasanayaka dismissed Ritu and conceded merely three scoring runs before Athapaththu's chaos, with Rabeya Khan, Nahida Akter, captain Joty and Marufa Akter all removed as the Lankan team seized the triumph at the death.
Bangladesh fail to maintain composure - and catches
Ultimately, it was a contest of nerves. The very experienced Athapaththu, who ushered away a handful of teammates as she got ready to bowl the final over, kept hers. The opposition could not.
There will be numerous inquiries about Bangladesh's batting effort. They possibly have been chasing around 270-280 with Sri Lanka looking settled on 159-4 in the 30th over, but rather the chase was much lower.
Nevertheless, the batting side lacked purpose from ball one, making runs at below 2.5 runs per over during the initial phase, suffering a early batting collapse, and finally forcing themselves excessive to achieve.
But no matter what difficulties there are with their batting, if they had seized their opportunities in the fielding department, that 203-run target target would have been considerably smaller.
It took them three efforts to end the 72-run stand second-wicket association, with wicketkeeper Joty failing to hold a difficult opportunity behind the stumps to send back Perera on her score of 23 before the captain survived from a caught and bowled chance possibility against Rabeya Khan.
The batter was dropped further on her score of 55 and 63 runs, the last attempt flying right to Jhilik at cover field, before ultimately being dismissed lbw by Shorna Akter as she tried to increase the tempo with partners getting out beside her.
Later in the game, there was additionally a failed stumping and a missed run-out, even though the latter was a slightly unfortunate, with Rubya Haider deputising with the gloves after an fitness issue to the regular keeper.
Regrettably for Bangladesh, such fielding issues are far from a single occurrence. They've failed to catch 14 chances from a possible 27 opportunities at this World Cup and have the worst fielding effectiveness (48.1 percent) of the participating teams.
They are a team who are typically heading in the proper way – they are playing in just their second ODI World Cup in the end – but substandard fielding is a obvious issue which requires improvement.
