Sri Lanka defeats Bangladesh to preserve their World Cup tournament hopes ongoing

Women's Cricket World Cup, Mumbai

The Lankan team 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 emerge victorious by seven runs margin

The Lankan cricket team took four wickets in the final innings segment to complete a thrilling win over Bangladesh and keep their slim chances of qualifying for the World Cup semi-finals ongoing.

Needing a below-par total of 203 on a good batting surface in Navi Mumbai, Bangladesh needed nine runs from the last six bowls.

Yet, Sri Lanka captain Chamari Athapaththu claimed three wickets in four deliveries and de Silva ran out Nahida Akter to bring about a thrilling victory for Sri Lanka.

The win – Sri Lanka's maiden of the World Cup after three losses and two abandoned games against the Australian team and New Zealand – pushes them equal on four match points with the Indian team and New Zealand, who confront each other on the coming Thursday.

The Bangladeshi team, on the other hand, endured a fifth straight setback since winning their first match against Pakistan and have been knocked out.

Although the Bangladeshi side got off to the perfect start, with Marufa striking with the first delivery of the game to remove Gunaratne, they were deservedly punished for a poor fielding display.

They gifted lifelines to Hasini Perera, who was missed multiple times, and the Lankan captain.

Even though Athapaththu was unable to capitalise, sent back lbw for 46 just one delivery after being missed by Rabeya, Hasini Perera forced Bangladesh regret it.

She scored a debut international fifty, accumulating 85 from 99 deliveries and sharing an significant 74-run stand fifth-wicket association with Nilakshi de Silva.

The Bangladeshi team, spearheaded by Shorna's impressive bowling figures, pulled themselves back into the game, with De Silva's dismissal in the 34th innings segment causing a Sri Lanka downfall from 174-4 to 202 all out.

During their chase, the Lankan team's starting bowlers Malki Madara and Prabodhani restricted the opposition to 23-1 in a uninspiring opening overs and they were subsequently reduced to 44 with three wickets lost.

Sharmin Akter and Joty rebuilt their score, putting on 82 for the fourth wicket stand before Sharmin withdrew due to injury for a stubborn 64 in the 36th bowling phase.

It was leaning toward the chasing team approaching the last two overs, with merely 12 additional runs required.

However, Sugandika Dasanayaka sent back Ritu Moni and allowed merely three runs before Athapaththu's decisive intervention, with Rabeya Khan, Nahida Akter, skipper Joty and Marufa all removed as Sri Lanka seized the win at the death.

Finally, it was a match of nerves. The very experienced Lankan captain, who ushered away a handful of team-mates as she prepared to bowl the final over, held her nerve. Bangladesh did not.

There will be many inquiries about the team's batting effort. They possibly have been needing around 270-280 with the Lankan team seeming at ease on 159 with four wickets down in the 30th bowling phase, but rather the chase was much lower.

Nevertheless, the batting side showed little aggression from the start, accumulating runs at less than 2.5 scoring rate during the powerplay, undergoing a top-order collapse, and eventually forcing themselves overwhelming to achieve.

But no matter what issues there are with their batting approach, if they had taken their chances in the field, that 203-run objective would have been significantly smaller.

It took them three efforts to terminate the 72-run stand second-wicket collaboration, with keeper Nigar Sultana failing to hold a difficult opportunity behind the stumps to dismiss Perera on 23 runs before Athapaththu got a reprieve from a return catch opportunity against Rabeya Khan.

The batter was missed again on 55 and 63 runs, the latter chance traveling directly to Jhilik at cover, before finally being given out lbw by Shorna as she sought to increase the tempo with batting partners getting out around her.

Afterwards in the innings, there was furthermore a failed stumping and a run-out opportunity lost, although the run-out chance was a slightly regrettable, with Jhilik standing in with the keeping duties following an injury to Joty.

Sadly for Bangladesh, such fielding woes are far from a single occurrence. They've failed to catch 14 catches from a available 27 chances at this tournament and boast the worst catching success rate (less than 50%) of the participating teams.

They are a squad who are overall progressing in the proper way – they are competing in merely their second 50-over World Cup in the end – but poor fielding is a obvious problem which requires improvement.