Sri Lanka beats the Bangladeshi side to maintain their campaign ongoing
The Lankan team will face the Pakistani side in their crucial last tournament game
Women's Cricket World Cup, Navi Mumbai
The Lankan team 202 (48.4 overs): Hasini Perera 85 (99); Shorna Akter 3-27
Bangladesh 195-9 (50 overs): Nigar Sultana Joty 77 (98); Athapaththu 4-42
Sri Lanka emerge victorious by seven runs
The Lankan cricket team claimed four crucial dismissals in the last over to achieve a heart-stopping triumph over Bangladesh and keep their faint chances of qualifying for the World Cup semi-finals alive.
Pursuing a attainable score of 203 on a favorable wicket in Navi Mumbai, the Bangladeshi team wanted nine additional runs from the remaining six bowls.
Nevertheless, Sri Lanka captain Chamari Athapaththu secured three wickets in four balls and de Silva dismissed via run-out Nahida to bring about a dramatic victory for Sri Lanka.
The win – Sri Lanka's first of the competition after three unsuccessful matches and two no-results against Australia and the Kiwi side – moves them tied on four points with the Indian team and New Zealand, who face each other on the coming Thursday.
Bangladesh, however, endured a fifth straight setback since securing victory in their first match against Pakistan and have been knocked out.
While the Bangladeshi side made the perfect start, with Marufa Akter taking a wicket with the first delivery of the game to send back Vishmi Gunaratne, they were appropriately made to pay for a disappointing fielding effort.
They provided lifelines to Hasini Perera, who was spilled multiple times, and Athapaththu.
While Athapaththu failed to make it count, dismissed lbw for 46 one ball after being dropped by Rabeya Khan, Perera made Bangladesh suffer.
She registered a debut international half-century, scoring 85 from 99 bowls and building an crucial 74-run fifth-wicket association with De Silva.
The Bangladeshi team, spearheaded by Shorna Akter's impressive bowling figures, fought themselves back in the contest, with De Silva's removal in the 34th bowling segment initiating a Sri Lanka downfall from 174 with four wickets down to 202 total.
In reply, the Lankan team's starting bowlers Madara and Prabodhani contained Bangladesh to 23 with one wicket down in a lacklustre opening overs and they were later diminished to 44 for three.
Sharmin Akter and Nigar Sultana Joty rebuilt their batting effort, putting on 82 runs for the fourth wicket before Sharmin retired hurt for a determined 64 in the 36th over.
It was advantage Bangladesh heading into the last two innings segments, with only 12 runs required.
However, Dasanayaka removed Ritu Moni and gave away just three runs before Athapaththu's chaos, with Rabeya, Nahida Akter, captain Joty and Marufa Akter all sent back as Sri Lanka seized the victory at the very end.
Bangladesh are unable to hold nerve - and catches
Ultimately, it was a match of nerve. The highly experienced Lankan captain, who ushered away a few of teammates as she prepared to deliver the last over, kept her nerve. The opposition could not.
There will be numerous doubts about the team's batting display. They might well have been pursuing 270 to 280 with the Lankan team appearing comfortable on 159 with four wickets down in the 30th innings segment, but rather the chase was significantly less.
Yet, Bangladesh displayed insufficient aggression from the very beginning, accumulating runs at less than 2.5 scoring rate during the opening overs, undergoing a early batting collapse, and finally leaving themselves excessive to do.
But no matter what problems there are with their batting approach, if they had accepted their chances in the field, that 203-run target objective would have been considerably smaller.
It took them three tries to end the 72-run stand second-wicket, with keeper Joty failing to hold a challenging chance behind the stumps to send back Hasini Perera on her score of 23 before the captain was spared from a caught and bowled chance chance against Rabeya Khan.
The batter was missed again on 55 and 63 runs, the latter chance traveling directly to Jhilik at cover field, before ultimately being trapped leg before wicket by Shorna Akter as she sought to increase the tempo with teammates being dismissed around her.
Afterwards in the innings, there was also a failed stumping and a run-out opportunity lost, although the second one was a somewhat regrettable, with Rubya Haider deputising with the wicketkeeping gloves after an injury to Joty.
Unfortunately for Bangladesh, such fielding problems are nowhere near a isolated incident. They've dropped 14 chances from a possible 27 opportunities at this competition and have the worst catch efficiency (48.1 percent) of the competing sides.
They are a squad who are typically heading in the right direction – they are participating in only their second ODI World Cup after all – but substandard fielding performance is a glaring concern which requires attention.