Sri Lanka overcomes Bangladesh to maintain their tournament hopes alive

Women's Cricket World Cup, Navi Mumbai

The Lankan team 202 (48.4 overs): Perera 85 (99); Shorna Akter 3-27

The Bangladeshi team 195-9 (50 overs): Joty 77 (98); Athapaththu 4-42

The Lankan side emerge victorious by seven runs margin

Sri Lanka secured four wickets in the last innings segment to seal a nail-biting win over Bangladesh and keep their slim aspirations of qualifying for the World Cup semi-finals ongoing.

Needing a below-par total of 203 on a favorable wicket in the Mumbai stadium, the Bangladeshi team needed nine additional runs from the last six deliveries.

Yet, Sri Lanka captain Chamari Athapaththu secured three important dismissals in four bowls and de Silva ran out Nahida Akter to achieve a thrilling win for Sri Lanka.

The win – Sri Lanka's initial of the tournament after three defeats and two washed-out matches against the Australian team and the Kiwi side – moves them equal on four points with India and New Zealand, who confront each other on Thursday.

Bangladesh, however, experienced a fifth successive defeat since securing victory in their first match against the Pakistani team and have been removed from contention.

While the Bangladeshi side got off to the excellent commencement, with Marufa Akter striking with the first delivery of the game to send back Vishmi Gunaratne, they were appropriately penalized for a poor fielding display.

They gifted reprieves to Hasini Perera, who was spilled three times, and Athapaththu.

Even though the Sri Lankan skipper could not make it count, removed leg before wicket for 46 a single bowl after being missed by Rabeya Khan, Hasini Perera forced the opposition suffer.

She registered a debut international half-century, accumulating 85 from 99 balls and sharing an important 74-run partnership fifth-wicket collaboration with De Silva.

The Bangladeshi team, led by Shorna's three wickets for 27 runs, pulled themselves back into the game, with Nilakshi's wicket in the 34th over causing a Lankan batting collapse from 174 with four wickets down to 202 total.

In reply, Sri Lanka's starting bowlers Madara and Udeshika Prabodhani restricted the opposition to 23 for one in a disappointing opening overs and they were afterwards diminished to 44-3.

Sharmin Akter and Joty restored their batting effort, contributing an 82-run partnership for the fourth wicket before the batter withdrew due to injury for a stubborn 64 in the 36th over.

It was leaning toward Bangladesh heading into the final two bowling phases, with just 12 runs necessary.

However, Dasanayaka removed Ritu and allowed merely three scoring runs before Athapaththu's decisive intervention, with Rabeya Khan, Nahida Akter, skipper Joty and Marufa Akter all dismissed as the Lankan team grabbed the triumph at the final moment.

In the end, it was a contest of composure. The seasoned Athapaththu, who moved aside a handful of fellow players as she prepared to deliver the last over, kept her nerve. The opposition did not.

There will be numerous inquiries about Bangladesh's batting effort. They might well have been pursuing 270 to 280 with the Lankan team looking comfortable on 159 with four wickets down in the 30th bowling phase, but rather the required total was much lower.

Yet, the batting side displayed insufficient purpose from the start, accumulating runs at under 2.5 scoring rate during the initial phase, experiencing a initial wicket loss, and ultimately making themselves overwhelming to achieve.

But no matter what problems there are with their batting, if they had taken their opportunities in the fielding area, that 203-run target would have been considerably less.

It needed them three attempts to end the 72-run stand second-wicket collaboration, with keeper Joty being unable to grab a challenging catch behind the stumps to dismiss Perera on 23 before the captain was spared from a caught and bowled chance opportunity against Rabeya.

Perera was missed once more on her score of 55 and her score of 63, the latter chance flying right to Rubya Haider Jhilik at cover, before eventually being trapped lbw by Shorna Akter as she attempted to accelerate the scoring with batting partners falling around her.

Subsequently in the innings, there was additionally a missed stumping and a run-out opportunity lost, although the second one was a slightly regrettable, with Jhilik substituting with the keeping duties after an injury to Joty.

Unfortunately for Bangladesh, such fielding issues are far from a one-off. They've dropped 14 catches from a possible 27 opportunities at this tournament and display the lowest catching success rate (48.1%) of the eight teams.

They are a team who are typically moving in the right direction – they are competing in only their second one-day World Cup ultimately – but substandard fielding is a prominent issue which needs improvement.