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

ICC Women's World Cup, Mumbai

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

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

Sri Lanka emerge victorious by seven runs margin

The Lankan cricket team took four crucial dismissals in the final over to achieve a nail-biting win over their opponents and preserve their slim hopes of making it for the tournament knockout stage alive.

Pursuing a below-par total of 203 on a good batting surface in the Mumbai stadium, Bangladesh wanted nine additional runs from the final six deliveries.

Nevertheless, Sri Lanka captain Chamari Athapaththu secured three crucial wickets in four balls and de Silva dismissed via run-out Nahida to bring about a dramatic victory for the Lankan team.

The victory – Sri Lanka's first of the competition after three losses and two washed-out matches against Australia and the Kiwi side – pushes them level on four match points with the Indian team and the New Zealand side, who confront each other on the coming Thursday.

The Bangladeshi team, however, experienced a fifth successive defeat since winning their initial game against Pakistan and have been removed from contention.

While Bangladesh got off to the perfect start, with Marufa taking a wicket with the initial ball of the encounter to remove Gunaratne, they were rightfully penalized for a subpar fielding performance.

They offered second chances to Perera, who was spilled three times, and Athapaththu.

Even though Athapaththu was unable to make it count, dismissed leg before wicket for 46 just one delivery after being dropped by Rabeya Khan, Hasini Perera made the opposition suffer.

She scored a first international 50-run score, accumulating 85 from 99 balls and sharing an significant 74-run partnership fifth-wicket collaboration with De Silva.

Bangladesh, spearheaded by Shorna's three wickets for 27 runs, pulled themselves back in the match, with Nilakshi's dismissal in the 34th bowling segment triggering a Lankan downfall from 174-4 to 202 complete.

During their chase, Sri Lanka's opening bowlers Madara and Prabodhani contained Bangladesh to 23 with one wicket down in a uninspiring opening overs and they were afterwards reduced to 44-3.

Sharmin Akter and Nigar Sultana Joty rebuilt their batting effort, contributing 82 for the fourth wicket collaboration before Sharmin retired hurt for a determined 64 in the 36th over.

It was advantage Bangladesh entering the last two overs, with only 12 runs necessary.

However, Dasanayaka removed Ritu and allowed merely three runs before Athapaththu's dramatic spell, with Rabeya Khan, Nahida Akter, captain Joty and Marufa all sent back as the Lankan team seized the victory at the very end.

Finally, it was a game of nerves. The very experienced Lankan captain, who directed away a few of fellow players as she got ready to bowl the last over, kept hers. The opposition failed to.

There will be many doubts about the team's batting display. They possibly have been pursuing 270 or 280 with the Lankan team appearing comfortable on 159-4 in the 30th over, but instead the required total was significantly less.

However, the batting side lacked intent from ball one, scoring at under 2.5 runs per over during the opening overs, suffering a early batting collapse, and eventually leaving themselves excessive to achieve.

But no matter what problems there are with their batting, if they had taken their chances in the fielding department, that 203 total target would have been considerably lower.

It took them three tries to terminate the 72-run partnership second-wicket, with wicketkeeper Nigar Sultana not managing to take a challenging catch while keeping to remove Hasini Perera on 23 runs before the captain got a reprieve from a caught and bowled possibility against Rabeya Khan.

The batter was spilled once more on 55 runs and her score of 63, the latter chance traveling right to Jhilik at cover position, before eventually being given out leg before wicket by Shorna as she attempted to accelerate the scoring with batting partners getting out near her.

Afterwards in the batting effort, there was furthermore a stumping chance missed and a failed run-out, even though the latter was a somewhat unlucky, with Rubya Haider standing in with the gloves due to an fitness issue to the regular keeper.

Regrettably for the team, such fielding issues are not at all a one-off. They've failed to catch 14 chances from a possible 27 at this tournament and boast the lowest catch efficiency (48.1%) of the participating teams.

They are a team who are overall heading in the correct path – they are playing in just their second one-day World Cup ultimately – but substandard fielding is a obvious issue which demands improvement.