Sri Lanka defeats Bangladesh to keep their World Cup campaign breathing
Sri Lanka will meet Pakistan in their must-win final tournament game
Women's Cricket World Cup, Navi Mumbai
The Lankan team 202 (48.4 overs): Hasini Perera 85 (99); Shorna 3-27
Bangladesh 195-9 (50 overs): Joty 77 (98); Chamari Athapaththu 4-42
The Lankan side win by seven runs margin
Sri Lanka claimed four crucial dismissals in the last over to achieve a heart-stopping win over their opponents and keep their narrow aspirations of qualifying for the World Cup semi-finals intact.
Pursuing a attainable target of 203 on a favorable wicket in Navi Mumbai, Bangladesh wanted nine additional runs from the final six balls.
Nevertheless, Sri Lanka captain Athapaththu secured three crucial wickets in four balls and Nilakshi de Silva ran out Nahida Akter to secure a dramatic win for the Lankan team.
The triumph – the Lankan team's first of the competition after three defeats and two abandoned games against the Australian team and New Zealand – moves them tied on four tournament points with the Indian team and the New Zealand side, who meet each other on Thursday.
The Bangladeshi team, however, endured a fifth straight defeat since securing victory in their tournament opener against the Pakistani team and have been removed from contention.
Although Bangladesh made the perfect start, with Marufa taking a wicket with the initial ball of the match to send back Gunaratne, they were deservedly made to pay for a disappointing fielding effort.
They provided reprieves to Hasini Perera, who was dropped three times, and the Lankan captain.
Even though the Sri Lankan skipper could not make it count, dismissed lbw for 46 just one delivery after being put down by Rabeya Khan, Hasini Perera made Bangladesh regret it.
She achieved a maiden international 50-run score, accumulating 85 from 99 deliveries and building an significant 74-run partnership fifth-wicket association with Nilakshi de Silva.
Bangladesh, led by Shorna's 3-27, dragged themselves back in the game, with De Silva's removal in the 34th over triggering a Lankan collapse from 174 with four wickets down to 202 complete.
During their chase, the Lankan team's initial pace attack Madara and Udeshika Prabodhani limited the opposition to 23 for one in a lacklustre powerplay and they were afterwards reduced to 44-3.
Sharmin and Nigar Sultana Joty reconstructed their batting effort, contributing 82 runs for the fourth wicket collaboration before the batter retired hurt for a stubborn 64 in the 36th innings segment.
It was in favor of the chasing team approaching the remaining two innings segments, with merely 12 runs required.
Yet, Sugandika Dasanayaka dismissed Ritu Moni and allowed just three scoring runs before the captain's chaos, with Rabeya, Nahida Akter, skipper Joty and Marufa Akter all dismissed as the Lankan team seized the win at the death.
Bangladesh are unable to keep calm - and catches
In the end, it was a match of nerve. The highly experienced Lankan captain, who moved aside a several of team-mates as she set herself to deliver the decisive over, held hers. Bangladesh could not.
There will be many questions about Bangladesh's batting effort. They could easily have been needing 270 to 280 with the Lankan team appearing at ease on 159 for four in the 30th over, but in contrast the required total was considerably smaller.
However, the batting side lacked aggression from ball one, making runs at below 2.5 scoring rate during the initial phase, undergoing a initial wicket loss, and eventually making themselves too much to accomplish.
But whatever problems there are with their batting lineup, if they had accepted their opportunities in the fielding area, that 203-run target target would have been considerably less.
It needed them three tries to break the 72-run partnership second-wicket collaboration, with keeper Nigar Sultana failing to take a challenging opportunity while keeping to dismiss Hasini Perera on 23 before the captain was spared from a return catch chance against Rabeya Khan.
The batter was dropped further on 55 runs and her score of 63, the final opportunity traveling straight to Jhilik at cover field, before eventually being trapped leg before wicket by Shorna as she attempted to accelerate the scoring with teammates getting out around her.
Afterwards in the game, there was also a stumping chance missed and a missed run-out, while the second one was a somewhat regrettable, with Rubya Haider deputising with the wicketkeeping gloves after an fitness issue to the regular keeper.
Sadly for Bangladesh, such fielding issues are far from a single occurrence. They've dropped 14 chances from a potential 27 at this World Cup and display the lowest catching success rate (48.1 percent) of the eight teams.
They are a squad who are overall moving in the proper way – they are competing in only their second one-day World Cup ultimately – but inadequate fielding standards is a obvious issue which requires attention.