Sri Lanka beats Bangladesh to maintain their World Cup tournament hopes alive

Women's Cricket World Cup, Mumbai

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

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

Sri Lanka emerge victorious by seven runs

The Lankan cricket team took four crucial dismissals in the decisive over to achieve a heart-stopping triumph over Bangladesh and maintain their slim aspirations of making it for the tournament knockout stage intact.

Needing a below-par score of 203 on a favorable wicket in Navi Mumbai, Bangladesh needed nine more runs from the remaining six bowls.

However, Sri Lanka captain Athapaththu took three wickets in four deliveries and Nilakshi de Silva ran out Nahida Akter to achieve a dramatic victory for the Lankan team.

The triumph – the Lankan team's first of the World Cup after three defeats and two no-results against the Australian team and the Kiwi side – elevates them equal on four match points with the Indian team and the New Zealand side, who confront each other on the coming Thursday.

The Bangladeshi team, on the other hand, endured a fifth successive defeat since winning their initial game against the Pakistani team and have been removed from contention.

While Bangladesh made the excellent commencement, with Marufa Akter striking with the initial ball of the match to send back Vishmi Gunaratne, they were deservedly penalized for a disappointing fielding performance.

They offered second chances to Perera, who was missed three times, and the Lankan captain.

While the Sri Lankan skipper was unable to capitalise, dismissed lbw for 46 a single bowl after being put down by Rabeya, Hasini Perera made Bangladesh suffer.

She scored a first international fifty, accumulating 85 from 99 deliveries and contributing to an significant 74-run partnership fifth-wicket with De Silva.

The Bangladeshi team, spearheaded by Shorna's impressive bowling figures, pulled themselves back into the contest, with De Silva's wicket in the 34th innings segment causing a Lankan downfall from 174 with four wickets down to 202 complete.

In reply, Sri Lanka's starting bowlers Madara and Prabodhani restricted Bangladesh to 23-1 in a uninspiring initial phase and they were afterwards brought down to 44-3.

Sharmin and Joty rebuilt their score, putting on 82 for the fourth wicket before the batter retired hurt for a resolute 64 in the 36th over.

It was leaning toward the chasing team approaching the remaining two bowling phases, with just 12 more runs required.

However, Dasanayaka removed Ritu Moni and conceded just three scoring runs before Athapaththu's dramatic spell, with Rabeya Khan, Nahida Akter, captain Joty and Marufa Akter all sent back as Sri Lanka snatched the triumph at the final moment.

In the end, it was a game of composure. The very experienced Athapaththu, who moved aside a few of team-mates as she got ready to bowl the final over, held her composure. The opposition failed to.

There will be numerous doubts about the team's batting display. They could easily have been pursuing around 270-280 with Sri Lanka appearing settled on 159 with four wickets down in the 30th bowling phase, but instead the chase was considerably smaller.

Nevertheless, the batting side displayed insufficient aggression from the start, making runs at under 2.5 scoring rate during the powerplay, undergoing a early batting collapse, and eventually forcing themselves excessive to achieve.

But whatever problems there are with their batting, if they had seized their chances in the fielding area, that 203-run target target would have been substantially less.

It required them three efforts to terminate the 72-run stand second-wicket association, with keeper Nigar Sultana being unable to grab a tough catch while keeping to remove Perera on her score of 23 before Athapaththu was spared from a caught and bowled chance against Rabeya Khan.

Perera was spilled once more on 55 runs and her score of 63, the last attempt traveling directly to Rubya Haider Jhilik at cover field, before ultimately being trapped lbw by Shorna Akter as she attempted to accelerate the scoring with batting partners getting out near her.

Later in the innings, there was furthermore a stumping chance missed and a missed run-out, while the second one was a somewhat unlucky, with Rubya Haider standing in with the gloves due to an injury to the regular keeper.

Sadly for Bangladesh, such fielding problems are far from a one-off. They've missed 14 chances from a possible 27 at this tournament and display the lowest fielding effectiveness (48.1%) of the eight teams.

They are a squad who are typically progressing in the right direction – they are playing in just their second ODI World Cup ultimately – but substandard fielding is a obvious issue which demands focus.