Sri Lanka beats Bangladesh to preserve their tournament hopes alive

ICC Women's World Cup, Navi Mumbai

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

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

The Lankan side win by seven runs margin

Sri Lanka secured four wickets in the final over to complete a nail-biting triumph over their opponents and keep their narrow aspirations of qualifying for the World Cup semi-finals ongoing.

Needing a modest score of 203 on a good batting surface in Navi Mumbai, Bangladesh wanted nine additional runs from the remaining six bowls.

However, Lankan skipper Athapaththu claimed three wickets in four bowls and Nilakshi de Silva dismissed via run-out Nahida to achieve a exciting success for Sri Lanka.

The triumph – Sri Lanka's first of the tournament after three losses and two no-results against the Australian team and New Zealand – pushes them equal on four tournament points with the Indian team and New Zealand, who confront each other on the coming Thursday.

Bangladesh, however, experienced a fifth straight loss since securing victory in their initial game against the Pakistani team and have been removed from contention.

Even though the Bangladeshi side made the excellent commencement, with Marufa Akter striking with the initial ball of the match to remove Vishmi Gunaratne, they were appropriately made to pay for a subpar fielding display.

They provided second chances to Perera, who was dropped multiple times, and Athapaththu.

Even though Athapaththu failed to make it count, removed lbw for 46 a single bowl after being missed by Rabeya, Perera forced Bangladesh regret it.

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

Bangladesh, spearheaded by Shorna Akter's 3-27, pulled themselves back in the game, with De Silva's dismissal in the 34th over triggering a Lankan batting collapse from 174 with four wickets down to 202 complete.

While batting second, the Lankan team's initial pace attack Madara and Udeshika Prabodhani restricted the opposition to 23 for one in a lacklustre initial phase and they were afterwards reduced to 44 with three wickets lost.

Sharmin and Joty rebuilt 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 the chasing team entering the remaining two innings segments, with only 12 runs required.

However, Sugandika Dasanayaka dismissed Ritu and gave away just three runs before the captain's chaos, with Rabeya Khan, Nahida, skipper Joty and Marufa all sent back as the Lankan team seized the victory at the final moment.

In the end, it was a match of composure. The very experienced Lankan captain, who moved aside a handful of team-mates as she got ready to bowl the decisive over, kept hers. The opposition did not.

There will be many inquiries about the team's batting effort. They might well have been needing 270 or 280 with Sri Lanka appearing settled on 159 for four in the 30th bowling phase, but rather the target was considerably smaller.

However, the batting side displayed insufficient purpose from the very beginning, accumulating runs at under 2.5 scoring rate during the opening overs, suffering a top-order collapse, and ultimately leaving themselves excessive to accomplish.

But whatever problems there are with their batting approach, if they had taken their catches in the fielding department, that 203-run goal would have been significantly lower.

It took them three attempts to break the 72-run second-wicket collaboration, with keeper Nigar Sultana not managing to take a difficult catch behind the stumps to dismiss Perera on her score of 23 before Athapaththu was spared from a caught and bowled chance opportunity against Rabeya.

The batter was dropped once more on her score of 55 and 63 runs, the last attempt traveling directly to Jhilik at cover, before finally being given out lbw by Shorna as she tried to accelerate the scoring with partners getting out around her.

Subsequently in the innings, there was furthermore a missed stumping and a missed run-out, although the second one was a somewhat unfortunate, with Rubya Haider substituting with the gloves after an physical problem to Joty.

Unfortunately for Bangladesh, such fielding woes are not at all a isolated incident. They've failed to catch 14 chances from a available 27 opportunities at this competition and boast the lowest fielding effectiveness (48.1 percent) of the participating teams.

They are a side who are generally progressing in the right direction – they are competing in only their second one-day World Cup in the end – but inadequate fielding performance is a obvious concern which requires focus.