Sri Lanka beats Bangladesh to maintain their tournament hopes breathing

Women's Cricket World Cup, Navi Mumbai

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

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

Sri Lanka win by seven runs margin

The Lankan cricket team secured four crucial dismissals in the decisive innings segment to complete a nail-biting triumph over their opponents and preserve their narrow aspirations of making it for the World Cup semi-finals alive.

Chasing a below-par score of 203 on a good batting surface in the Mumbai stadium, Bangladesh needed nine runs from the remaining six balls.

Yet, Lankan skipper Athapaththu claimed three wickets in four deliveries and Nilakshi de Silva ran out Nahida to bring about a exciting victory for the Lankan team.

The win – the Lankan team's maiden of the World Cup after three unsuccessful matches and two washed-out matches against Australia and the Kiwi side – pushes them tied on four tournament points with India and the New Zealand side, who meet each other on the coming Thursday.

The Bangladeshi team, however, suffered a fifth consecutive loss since winning their first match against the Pakistani team and have been knocked out.

Even though the Bangladeshi side got off to the ideal beginning, with Marufa taking a wicket with the opening bowl of the encounter to remove Vishmi Gunaratne, they were rightfully penalized for a poor fielding effort.

They gifted second chances to Hasini Perera, who was spilled on three occasions, and Athapaththu.

Although Athapaththu failed to make it count, dismissed lbw for 46 a single bowl after being dropped by Rabeya Khan, Perera forced the opposition suffer.

She achieved a debut international 50-run score, accumulating 85 from 99 balls and building an significant 74-run stand fifth-wicket association with De Silva.

The Bangladeshi team, led by Shorna Akter's three wickets for 27 runs, pulled themselves back to the contest, with Nilakshi's removal in the 34th innings segment causing a Sri Lanka collapse from 174 with four wickets down to 202 complete.

While batting second, Sri Lanka's initial pace attack Madara and Prabodhani restricted Bangladesh to 23 for one in a uninspiring powerplay and they were afterwards brought down to 44-3.

Sharmin Akter and Joty reconstructed their score, contributing 82 for the fourth wicket before Sharmin withdrew due to injury for a resolute 64 in the 36th innings segment.

It was leaning toward the chasing team heading into the remaining two innings segments, with merely 12 runs required.

Yet, Sugandika Dasanayaka dismissed Ritu and allowed merely three scoring runs before Athapaththu's decisive intervention, with Rabeya Khan, Nahida, captain Joty and Marufa all dismissed as the Lankan team seized the triumph at the very end.

In the end, it was a game of composure. The highly experienced Athapaththu, who moved aside a few of team-mates as she got ready to bowl the final over, kept her nerve. The opposition could not.

There will be numerous questions about Bangladesh's batting performance. They possibly have been pursuing 270 or 280 with the Lankan team looking at ease on 159 with four wickets down in the 30th bowling phase, but instead the required total was significantly less.

Nevertheless, the batting side showed little aggression from the start, accumulating runs at less than 2.5 scoring rate during the opening overs, undergoing a early batting collapse, and eventually leaving themselves excessive to accomplish.

But whatever issues there are with their batting approach, if they had accepted their chances in the fielding area, that 203-run objective would have been considerably less.

It needed them three attempts to end the 72-run stand second-wicket association, with keeper Joty failing to hold a tough opportunity as wicketkeeper to remove Perera on 23 before Athapaththu was spared from a return catch chance against Rabeya.

Perera was missed further on 55 and 63 runs, the last attempt going right to Jhilik at cover field, before ultimately being dismissed leg before wicket by Shorna Akter as she sought to increase the tempo with teammates getting out near her.

Later in the game, there was also a failed stumping and a missed run-out, even though the latter was a slightly regrettable, with Rubya Haider substituting with the wicketkeeping gloves due to an physical problem to Joty.

Unfortunately for Bangladesh, such fielding issues are far from a single occurrence. They've failed to catch 14 catches from a potential 27 opportunities at this tournament and have the lowest fielding effectiveness (48.1%) of the participating teams.

They are a team who are generally moving in the right direction – they are playing in merely their second ODI World Cup ultimately – but substandard fielding performance is a obvious concern which demands attention.