Sri Lanka defeats Bangladesh to keep their tournament hopes ongoing

Women's Cricket World Cup, Navi Mumbai

Sri Lanka 202 (48.4 overs): Perera 85 (99); Shorna Akter 3-27

Bangladesh 195-9 (50 overs): Joty 77 (98); Athapaththu 4-42

The Lankan side win by seven runs

The Lankan cricket team took four wickets in the final innings segment to seal a heart-stopping win over Bangladesh and keep their narrow chances of qualifying for the tournament knockout stage intact.

Needing a modest score of 203 on a good batting surface in the Mumbai stadium, the Bangladeshi team needed nine additional runs from the remaining six balls.

Yet, Sri Lanka captain Athapaththu secured three crucial wickets in four balls and Nilakshi de Silva ran out Nahida to achieve a thrilling success for Sri Lanka.

The triumph – Sri Lanka's maiden of the tournament after three unsuccessful matches and two abandoned games against Australia and the Kiwi side – moves them level on four match points with India and the New Zealand side, who confront each other on Thursday.

The Bangladeshi team, on the other hand, experienced a fifth consecutive defeat since securing victory in their tournament opener against the Pakistani team and have been eliminated.

While Bangladesh made the ideal beginning, with Marufa Akter taking a wicket with the initial ball of the match to remove Vishmi Gunaratne, they were deservedly penalized for a subpar fielding effort.

They provided reprieves to Perera, who was dropped on three occasions, and Athapaththu.

While the Sri Lankan skipper failed to take advantage, sent back lbw for 46 a single bowl after being missed by Rabeya Khan, Hasini Perera forced Bangladesh suffer.

She scored a first international half-century, making 85 from 99 bowls and contributing to an important 74-run stand fifth-wicket collaboration with De Silva.

Bangladesh, led by Shorna's impressive bowling figures, dragged themselves back in the contest, with Nilakshi's wicket in the 34th bowling segment causing a Sri Lanka downfall from 174-4 to 202 total.

While batting second, Sri Lanka's opening bowlers Madara and Prabodhani limited the opposition to 23-1 in a lacklustre powerplay and they were subsequently reduced to 44 with three wickets lost.

Sharmin Akter and Joty restored their batting effort, contributing an 82-run partnership for the fourth wicket stand before Sharmin left the field injured for a stubborn 64 in the 36th innings segment.

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

Yet, Sugandika Dasanayaka dismissed Ritu and allowed merely three runs before the captain's dramatic spell, with Rabeya Khan, Nahida Akter, skipper Joty and Marufa Akter all sent back as Sri Lanka seized the win at the very end.

In the end, it was a contest of nerve. The very experienced Athapaththu, who ushered away a several of fellow players as she prepared to bowl the last over, kept her composure. The opposition did not.

There will be plenty of questions about Bangladesh's batting effort. They possibly have been chasing around 270-280 with Sri Lanka appearing comfortable on 159 with four wickets down in the 30th over, but rather the chase was considerably smaller.

Nevertheless, Bangladesh lacked aggression from the start, scoring at less than 2.5 runs each over during the initial phase, undergoing a initial wicket loss, and ultimately making themselves overwhelming to do.

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

It required them three efforts to end the 72-run partnership second-wicket, with keeper Joty not managing to hold a challenging catch as wicketkeeper to send back Perera on 23 before Athapaththu was spared from a caught and bowled opportunity against Rabeya.

Perera was missed further on her score of 55 and her score of 63, the last attempt flying directly to Jhilik at cover field, before eventually being trapped leg before wicket by Shorna as she sought to increase the tempo with teammates being dismissed beside her.

Subsequently in the game, there was additionally a missed stumping and a failed run-out, although the latter was a somewhat regrettable, with Jhilik standing in with the wicketkeeping gloves following an physical problem to the regular keeper.

Regrettably for Bangladesh, such fielding problems are far from a one-off. They've failed to catch 14 chances from a potential 27 opportunities at this World Cup and have the poorest catching success rate (less than 50%) of the eight teams.

They are a side who are generally heading in the right direction – they are competing in just their second ODI World Cup in the end – but poor fielding is a obvious issue which requires improvement.