Sri Lanka beats Bangladesh to preserve their tournament hopes breathing

Women's Cricket World Cup, Navi Mumbai

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

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

The Lankan side win by seven runs

The Lankan cricket team took four crucial dismissals in the last innings segment to complete a heart-stopping triumph over Bangladesh and keep their faint hopes of qualifying for the tournament knockout stage ongoing.

Needing a below-par target of 203 on a favorable wicket in the Mumbai stadium, the Bangladeshi team wanted nine more runs from the last six bowls.

Nevertheless, Lankan skipper Chamari Athapaththu took three crucial wickets in four bowls and Nilakshi de Silva dismissed via run-out Nahida Akter to bring about a exciting victory for Sri Lanka.

The win – the Lankan team's maiden of the competition after three losses and two no-results against the Australian team and the Kiwi side – elevates them tied on four points with the Indian team and New Zealand, who confront each other on the coming Thursday.

The Bangladeshi team, however, endured a fifth straight setback since securing victory in their tournament opener against Pakistan and have been removed from contention.

Although the Bangladeshi side got off to the excellent commencement, with Marufa striking with the initial ball of the encounter to send back Vishmi Gunaratne, they were deservedly made to pay for a subpar fielding performance.

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

Although the Sri Lankan skipper was unable to make it count, sent back lbw for 46 just one delivery after being put down by Rabeya Khan, Perera made the opposition pay.

She scored a first international half-century, making 85 from 99 balls and building an crucial 74-run stand fifth-wicket collaboration with De Silva.

Bangladesh, led by Shorna's 3-27, pulled themselves back in the match, with De Silva's dismissal in the 34th innings segment initiating a Sri Lanka batting collapse from 174 for four to 202 total.

In reply, Sri Lanka's opening bowlers Malki Madara and Prabodhani contained the opposition to 23 for one in a disappointing powerplay and they were later diminished to 44-3.

Sharmin and Joty restored their batting effort, contributing 82 for the fourth wicket before the batter left the field injured for a stubborn 64 in the 36th bowling phase.

It was in favor of Bangladesh heading into the last two innings segments, with only 12 additional runs needed.

Nevertheless, Sugandika Dasanayaka sent back Ritu Moni and gave away only three scoring runs before Athapaththu's chaos, with Rabeya, Nahida Akter, skipper Joty and Marufa Akter all dismissed as the Lankan team snatched the victory at the final moment.

Finally, it was a contest of nerves. The very experienced Lankan captain, who directed away a handful of team-mates as she prepared to deliver the last over, kept hers. The opposition failed to.

There will be numerous questions about Bangladesh's batting display. They might well have been chasing 270 or 280 with Sri Lanka looking comfortable on 159 for four in the 30th over, but rather the target was much lower.

Nevertheless, Bangladesh displayed insufficient intent from ball one, scoring at less than 2.5 runs each over during the opening overs, suffering a initial wicket loss, and finally forcing themselves too much to achieve.

But no matter what problems there are with their batting lineup, if they had accepted their catches in the fielding area, that 203 total objective would have been significantly less.

It required them three attempts to end the 72-run stand second-wicket collaboration, with wicketkeeper Joty not managing to take a challenging opportunity behind the stumps to dismiss Perera on her score of 23 before Athapaththu got a reprieve from a caught and bowled chance possibility against Rabeya.

The batter was spilled once more on 55 and her score of 63, the final opportunity traveling straight to Rubya Haider Jhilik at cover, before finally being dismissed leg before wicket by Shorna as she tried to increase the tempo with batting partners getting out beside her.

Later in the batting effort, there was additionally a failed stumping and a failed run-out, while the latter was a slightly unlucky, with Jhilik standing in with the gloves following an injury to the regular keeper.

Regrettably for Bangladesh, such fielding problems are nowhere near a isolated incident. They've failed to catch 14 chances from a possible 27 opportunities at this competition and have the worst catching success rate (48.1 percent) of the participating teams.

They are a team who are overall progressing in the right direction – they are competing in only their second 50-over World Cup ultimately – but substandard fielding is a glaring problem which requires improvement.