Bangladesh missed out on their best chance of ensuring automatic qualification for the next edition of the tournament as their batting disintegrated in a chase of 98. Only two batters made it into double figures, as the batters undid some fine work from the bowlers, in particular Jahanara Alam.
Shashikala Siriwardene took two wickets for Sri Lanka after top scoring with the bat, and skipper Chamari Athapaththu took three after failing. But the dents in Bangladesh’s chase were made by the left arm swing of Udeshika Prabhodani, who took two wickets in her first over. Then the spinners shared the spoils, bowling 75 dots in the innings as Bangladesh never recovered from those early blows.
Earlier, Jahanara Alam’s three wickets were the highlight of a bowling effort that seemed to have done enough. Bangladesh strangled the Sri Lanka top order, until a 31-run partnership off 20 balls between Siriwardene and Nilakshi de Silva took them close to a hundred. A slow outfield and helpful conditions for the bowlers meant that those runs were enough.
Bangladesh’s Jahanara Alam said: “We had a goal that we don’t want to play any more qualifiers, for the World T20. We had a goal also that we want to play semifinals, but we lost that after we played this game. But we have still chance to increase our ranking against South Africa if we win that game.”
Sri Lanka captain Chamari Athapaththu said: “We all know they have a good bowling attack, good spinners, and the conditions are not good for the batters. So we tried to get 120, but unfortunately we lost a couple wickets early, so we reset our goal.
“Then we decided 100 is good score. We trust our bowlers, we have a good bowling attack. So finally we won.”
Scores in brief:
Sri Lanka defeated Bangladesh by 25 runs at the Daren Sammy National Cricket Stadium at Gros Islet, St. Lucia
Sri Lanka: 97-7, 20 overs (Shashikala Siriwardene 31; Jahanara Alam 3-21)
Bangladesh: 72 all out in 20 overs (Nigar Sulatana 20; Chamari Athapaththu 3-17, Udeshika Prabhodani 2-6, Shashikala Siriwardene 2-10)
Player of the match: Shashikala Siriwardene
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