Sri Lanka faced Bangladesh on 20 October (Monday) in match number-21 of the ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup 2025. In this match held at DY Patil Sports Academy, Navi Mumbai, Sri Lanka won a thrilling victory by 7 runs. In the match, Sri Lanka had given Bangladesh a target of 203 runs to win, but they could only score 195 runs for 9 wickets. With this victory, the Sri Lankan team’s hopes of reaching the semi-finals remain intact. Whereas Bangladesh became the first team to be eliminated from the tournament.
At one time in the match, Bangladesh team was moving towards victory. After 48 overs its score was 191 runs for four wickets. That means, to win, he had to score 12 runs in 12 balls and had six wickets in hand. Then spinner Sugandhika Kumari spent only three runs in the 49th over and took the wicket of Ritu Moni. Now in the last over, Bangladesh had to score 9 runs to win. Captain Nigar Sultane was still at the crease, hence Bangladesh could have won from here.
Sri Lankan captain Chamari Atapattu came to bowl the last over of the match. Atapattu trapped Rabeya Khan LBW on the first ball. Nahida Akhtar got run out on the next ball while trying to score a run. Now the Bangladeshi captain came on strike, but Atapattu gave another blow to Bangladesh by getting her caught out by Neelakshi de Silva. Now three balls were left and nine runs had to be scored. Atapattu gave out LBW to Marufa Akhtar on the fourth ball. That means Bangladeshi team lost four wickets in four balls. Only one run was scored on the fifth ball, after which Sri Lanka’s victory was confirmed. The last ball of that over was a dot.
Bangladeshi captain’s pain spills over
Women’s Cricket World Cup Bangladeshi captain Nigar Sultana’s pain was evident after being out of the race for the semi-finals. Sultana said, ‘From the beginning it felt as if this match was ours. Me and Sharmin were batting well. When Sharmin went out of the field due to cramps, the momentum of the match changed. After this we lost wickets on important occasions. Same thing happened with us in the last three matches also. This is truly a heartbreaking defeat. We could not withstand the pressure and wickets kept falling. We have to think about why we get nervous in such situations,
Nigar Sultana says, ‘Now we have one more match left and we have to correct our mistakes and end the tournament on a good note. At the beginning of the tournament we lost a lot of wickets in the powerplay. So we had planned not to lose too many wickets in the powerplay. I did not want the game to go till the last over. I was telling my partner that we have to finish the match in the 49th over itself, either try to hit a boundary or give me a strike, I will try to finish the match.
Teams of Australia, South Africa and England women’s cricket Has already reached the semi-finals of the World Cup 2025. Now teams from India, New Zealand, Pakistan and Sri Lanka are in the race for one spot. In this too, Pakistan team is almost out of the tournament. The main competition for the fourth spot is between New Zealand and India.
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