The Lankan team will confront Pakistan in their crucial final tournament game
ICC Women's World Cup, Navi Mumbai
Sri Lanka 202 (48.4 overs): Perera 85 (99); Shorna Akter 3-27
The Bangladeshi team 195-9 (50 overs): Joty 77 (98); Chamari Athapaththu 4-42
The Lankan side emerge victorious by seven runs margin
The Lankan cricket team took four crucial dismissals in the decisive innings segment to seal a heart-stopping win over Bangladesh and keep their faint aspirations of making it for the tournament knockout stage alive.
Needing a below-par target of 203 on a favorable wicket in the Mumbai stadium, Bangladesh wanted nine runs from the final six balls.
However, Sri Lanka captain Athapaththu took three important dismissals in four balls and de Silva dismissed via run-out Nahida to secure a dramatic victory for Sri Lanka.
The victory – the Lankan team's first of the competition after three unsuccessful matches and two abandoned games against Australia and the Kiwi side – pushes them level on four points with India and New Zealand, who confront each other on the coming Thursday.
The Bangladeshi team, in contrast, suffered a fifth straight setback since securing victory in their tournament opener against the Pakistani team and have been eliminated.
While Bangladesh made the excellent commencement, with Marufa Akter striking with the initial ball of the encounter to remove Vishmi Gunaratne, they were deservedly punished for a poor fielding effort.
They provided second chances to Perera, who was missed on three occasions, and Athapaththu.
While Athapaththu was unable to take advantage, removed lbw for 46 just one delivery after being put down by Rabeya Khan, Perera made the opposition suffer.
She scored a first international half-century, making 85 from 99 balls and contributing to an significant 74-run stand fifth-wicket collaboration with De Silva.
The Bangladeshi team, led by Shorna Akter's impressive bowling figures, dragged themselves back into the match, with Nilakshi's dismissal in the 34th over triggering a Lankan downfall from 174 with four wickets down to 202 all out.
During their chase, the Lankan team's opening bowlers Madara and Udeshika Prabodhani restricted the opposition to 23-1 in a disappointing powerplay and they were afterwards diminished to 44 for three.
Sharmin Akter and Nigar Sultana Joty reconstructed their batting effort, adding 82 for the fourth wicket before the batter withdrew due to injury for a stubborn 64 in the 36th bowling phase.
It was leaning toward Bangladesh approaching the last two bowling phases, with only 12 runs needed.
However, Dasanayaka removed Ritu and conceded merely three runs before Athapaththu's decisive intervention, with Rabeya, Nahida Akter, captain Joty and Marufa Akter all dismissed as Sri Lanka seized the victory at the death.
Bangladesh are unable to maintain composure - and fielding opportunities
Finally, it was a match of composure. The seasoned Athapaththu, who ushered away a several of team-mates as she set herself to bowl the decisive over, held hers. The opposition could not.
There will be plenty of doubts about Bangladesh's batting display. They might well have been chasing around 270-280 with Sri Lanka appearing comfortable on 159-4 in the 30th innings segment, but rather the required total was significantly less.
Yet, the batting side displayed insufficient purpose from the very beginning, making runs at under 2.5 runs each over during the initial phase, undergoing a initial wicket loss, and ultimately forcing themselves too much to accomplish.
But whatever difficulties there are with their batting lineup, if they had taken their catches in the fielding area, that 203-run target objective would have been significantly less.
It took them three tries to terminate the 72-run stand second-wicket, with keeper Joty not managing to grab a challenging chance behind the stumps to send back Perera on 23 before the captain got a reprieve from a return catch chance against Rabeya Khan.
Perera was dropped further on 55 runs and 63, the final opportunity going straight to Rubya Haider Jhilik at cover position, before finally being dismissed lbw by Shorna as she sought to accelerate the scoring with batting partners falling beside her.
Afterwards in the batting effort, there was additionally a stumping chance missed and a failed run-out, although the second one was a somewhat unfortunate, with Rubya Haider standing in with the wicketkeeping gloves after an injury to the regular keeper.
Unfortunately for the team, such fielding issues are nowhere near a one-off. They've failed to catch 14 chances from a potential 27 at this tournament and boast the lowest fielding effectiveness (less than 50%) of the participating teams.
They are a side who are generally heading in the proper way – they are playing in just their second 50-over World Cup after all – but substandard fielding is a glaring concern which requires attention.
