Sri Lanka beats Bangladesh to keep their World Cup tournament hopes ongoing

ICC Women's World Cup, Navi Mumbai

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

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

The Lankan side emerge victorious by seven runs

The Lankan cricket team took four crucial dismissals in the last innings segment to seal a thrilling triumph over Bangladesh and preserve their slim aspirations of qualifying for the tournament knockout stage alive.

Needing a attainable target of 203 on a good batting surface in Navi Mumbai, Bangladesh required nine more runs from the final six balls.

Nevertheless, Lankan skipper Chamari Athapaththu took three important dismissals in four bowls and de Silva dismissed via run-out Nahida to bring about a dramatic victory for the Lankan team.

The triumph – the Lankan team's first of the tournament after three unsuccessful matches and two washed-out matches against Australia and the Kiwi side – moves them equal on four points with India and the New Zealand side, who meet each other on the coming Thursday.

Bangladesh, however, endured a fifth successive setback since winning their tournament opener against the Pakistani team and have been removed from contention.

Although Bangladesh made the excellent commencement, with Marufa Akter taking a wicket with the opening bowl of the game to dismiss Vishmi Gunaratne, they were rightfully made to pay for a subpar fielding performance.

They gifted second chances to Hasini Perera, who was missed on three occasions, and Athapaththu.

Although the Sri Lankan skipper could not take advantage, dismissed leg before wicket for 46 a single bowl after being dropped by Rabeya Khan, Perera forced Bangladesh suffer.

She achieved a maiden international fifty, accumulating 85 from 99 deliveries and building an crucial 74-run partnership fifth-wicket with De Silva.

The Bangladeshi team, spearheaded by Shorna's 3-27, pulled themselves back into the contest, with De Silva's wicket in the 34th bowling segment causing a Sri Lanka batting collapse from 174 with four wickets down to 202 total.

In reply, the Lankan team's opening bowlers Madara and Udeshika Prabodhani limited Bangladesh to 23 for one in a uninspiring initial phase and they were later reduced to 44-3.

Sharmin and Joty reconstructed their score, contributing an 82-run partnership for the fourth wicket before the batter withdrew due to injury for a resolute 64 in the 36th innings segment.

It was leaning toward Bangladesh heading into the remaining two overs, with merely 12 additional runs needed.

Yet, Sugandika Dasanayaka sent back Ritu Moni and allowed merely three scoring runs before Athapaththu's decisive intervention, with Rabeya, Nahida Akter, skipper Joty and Marufa Akter all removed as the Lankan team seized the win at the very end.

Finally, it was a match of nerve. The highly experienced Athapaththu, who directed away a several of fellow players as she prepared to deliver the last over, held her nerve. Bangladesh could not.

There will be numerous questions about Bangladesh's batting effort. They might well have been needing 270 to 280 with Sri Lanka appearing settled on 159-4 in the 30th innings segment, but rather the target was significantly less.

Yet, Bangladesh lacked purpose from ball one, making runs at below 2.5 runs per over during the opening overs, suffering a top-order collapse, and ultimately making themselves too much to achieve.

But whatever difficulties there are with their batting, if they had seized their opportunities in the field, that 203-run objective would have been significantly smaller.

It required them three tries to end the 72-run partnership second-wicket collaboration, with keeper Joty not managing to grab a challenging opportunity as wicketkeeper to send back Perera on her score of 23 before the captain was spared from a caught and bowled chance opportunity against Rabeya.

The batter was spilled further on 55 and 63, the last attempt traveling directly to Jhilik at cover position, before eventually being given out leg before wicket by Shorna as she attempted to accelerate the scoring with partners being dismissed beside her.

Afterwards in the game, there was also a failed stumping and a missed run-out, while the latter was a slightly unfortunate, with Jhilik standing in with the gloves after an physical problem to the regular keeper.

Unfortunately for the team, such fielding issues are far from a isolated incident. They've missed 14 chances from a possible 27 chances at this tournament and have the poorest catching success rate (48.1 percent) of the participating teams.

They are a side who are typically heading in the proper way – they are participating in only their second 50-over World Cup after all – but poor fielding is a obvious problem which demands attention.