Sri Lanka prevail after Bangladesh choke in biblical fashion after what felt like an inevitable victory in their hands.
After a low-scoring thriller between Bangladesh and Sri Lanka in Navi Mumbai, a tournament that hasn’t seen many truly close finishes has now provided two in two days. In actuality, though, this game shouldn’t have progressed to that point because Bangladesh managed to reach 203 before faltering at the end and losing by seven runs. As a result, Sri Lanka survives to fight another day, but Bangladesh is eliminated from consideration for the semi-finals.
Sri Lanka trailed this chase for around 48 overs, but in a thrilling last-minute rally, they took five wickets and conceded two runs from the last nine deliveries, preventing Bangladesh from finishing a match they had largely dominated.
Although Chamari Athapaththu’s final scorecard will show that he took four wickets for forty-two, three of those came in a game-winning last over in which Bangladesh lost four wickets off the first four deliveries. A run-out in the middle ensured that Athapaththu’s hat-trick was not achieved.
Nigar Sultana had, if not skilfully, then at least safely, anchored the chase till that point. Her 77 off 98 was mostly a result of two significant collaborations, the first being 82 off 120 with Sharmin Akhter and the second being 50 off 58 with Shorna Akter. During these collaborations, Sri Lanka was essentially simply a passenger on a ship without a rudder.
In keeping with the analogy, this was not a ship that was travelling very fast. Bangladesh was guilty of being too cautious as they plodded about, possibly because of their subpar batting performances earlier in the competition, with a fairly chaseable goal of 203 on the board.
Sri Lanka had to settle for just keeping things close on a field that didn’t provide much for the numerous spinners they selected. They couldn’t really put their stamp on the game with the ball until the very end, when everything seemed to happen at once.