Sri Lanka overcomes Bangladesh to preserve their tournament hopes alive

Women's Cricket World Cup, Navi Mumbai

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

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

Sri Lanka emerge victorious by seven runs

Sri Lanka secured four crucial dismissals in the last over to achieve a heart-stopping triumph over their opponents and preserve their narrow chances of making it for the tournament knockout stage intact.

Needing a below-par score of 203 on a good batting surface in the Mumbai stadium, Bangladesh required nine runs from the final six bowls.

However, Lankan skipper Athapaththu claimed three crucial wickets in four bowls and Nilakshi de Silva dismissed via run-out Nahida to achieve a dramatic victory for the Lankan team.

The victory – Sri Lanka's initial of the World Cup after three unsuccessful matches and two abandoned games against Australia and New Zealand – moves them tied on four match points with the Indian team and New Zealand, who confront each other on the coming Thursday.

Bangladesh, in contrast, experienced a fifth straight loss since winning their first match against the Pakistani team and have been knocked out.

Although Bangladesh made the ideal beginning, with Marufa striking with the first delivery of the encounter to dismiss Vishmi Gunaratne, they were deservedly penalized for a subpar fielding effort.

They offered lifelines to Perera, who was missed three times, and Athapaththu.

Even though Athapaththu failed to take advantage, dismissed lbw for 46 just one delivery after being put down by Rabeya, Hasini Perera made the opposition regret it.

She scored a debut international 50-run score, accumulating 85 from 99 bowls and sharing an important 74-run stand fifth-wicket collaboration with De Silva.

Bangladesh, spearheaded by Shorna's impressive bowling figures, pulled themselves back in the match, with De Silva's dismissal in the 34th bowling segment initiating a Sri Lanka collapse from 174 with four wickets down to 202 all out.

In reply, the Lankan team's initial pace attack Malki Madara and Udeshika Prabodhani contained the opposition to 23 with one wicket down in a disappointing initial phase and they were afterwards brought down to 44 with three wickets lost.

Sharmin and Nigar Sultana Joty restored their score, contributing 82 runs for the fourth wicket before Sharmin left the field injured for a resolute 64 in the 36th innings segment.

It was leaning toward Bangladesh approaching the last two innings segments, with only 12 additional runs necessary.

However, Dasanayaka dismissed Ritu Moni and gave away merely three scoring runs before the captain's chaos, with Rabeya, Nahida, captain Joty and Marufa all removed as Sri Lanka seized the win at the death.

In the end, it was a game of nerves. The highly experienced Lankan captain, who ushered away a several of teammates as she got ready to bowl the last over, kept her nerve. The opposition failed to.

There will be plenty of inquiries about Bangladesh's batting performance. They possibly have been pursuing around 270-280 with Sri Lanka appearing at ease on 159 with four wickets down in the 30th over, but instead the target was significantly less.

However, the batting side displayed insufficient purpose from the start, accumulating runs at below 2.5 runs per over during the powerplay, suffering a top-order collapse, and eventually forcing themselves overwhelming to achieve.

But no matter what difficulties there are with their batting, if they had accepted their opportunities in the field, that 203-run target would have been substantially less.

It took them three efforts to break the 72-run partnership second-wicket association, with keeper Nigar Sultana being unable to take a challenging opportunity behind the stumps to remove Perera on 23 runs before Athapaththu got a reprieve from a return catch opportunity against Rabeya Khan.

Perera was missed again on 55 and her score of 63, the latter chance flying right to Rubya Haider Jhilik at cover, before eventually being given out lbw by Shorna as she tried to accelerate the scoring with partners getting out near her.

Afterwards in the innings, there was also a stumping chance missed and a failed run-out, even though the latter was a somewhat regrettable, with Jhilik standing in with the gloves due to an fitness issue to the regular keeper.

Unfortunately for the team, such fielding issues are not at all a single occurrence. They've missed 14 catches from a available 27 opportunities at this tournament and boast the lowest catch efficiency (48.1%) of the competing sides.

They are a team who are typically heading in the proper way – they are competing in merely their second ODI World Cup in the end – but inadequate fielding standards is a prominent issue which needs attention.