Sri Lanka beats Bangladesh to keep their tournament hopes alive

ICC Women's World Cup, Mumbai

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

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

The Lankan side win by seven runs margin

The Lankan cricket team took four wickets in the final over to complete a nail-biting victory over their opponents and preserve their faint aspirations of qualifying for the tournament knockout stage intact.

Pursuing a below-par total of 203 on a good batting surface in Navi Mumbai, the Bangladeshi team needed nine runs from the final six bowls.

Yet, Lankan skipper Chamari Athapaththu secured three wickets in four deliveries and de Silva ran out Nahida Akter to bring about a exciting success for Sri Lanka.

The win – the Lankan team's first of the tournament after three unsuccessful matches and two no-results against Australia and New Zealand – elevates them equal on four tournament points with India and the New Zealand side, who meet each other on Thursday.

Bangladesh, in contrast, experienced a fifth successive defeat since securing victory in their initial game against the Pakistani team and have been knocked out.

While Bangladesh made the excellent commencement, with Marufa striking with the opening bowl of the match to dismiss Gunaratne, they were appropriately punished for a subpar fielding performance.

They provided lifelines to Perera, who was missed on three occasions, and Athapaththu.

While Athapaththu was unable to take advantage, dismissed leg before wicket for 46 just one delivery after being dropped by Rabeya, Hasini Perera forced Bangladesh suffer.

She scored a debut international 50-run score, scoring 85 from 99 deliveries and building 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 in the match, with De Silva's wicket in the 34th innings segment initiating a Sri Lanka collapse from 174-4 to 202 all out.

While batting second, the Lankan team's initial pace attack Malki Madara and Prabodhani contained the opposition to 23-1 in a disappointing powerplay and they were subsequently brought down to 44-3.

Sharmin Akter and Nigar Sultana Joty rebuilt their batting effort, putting on 82 runs for the fourth wicket stand before Sharmin withdrew due to injury for a determined 64 in the 36th bowling phase.

It was advantage Bangladesh approaching the remaining two bowling phases, with merely 12 runs necessary.

Yet, Dasanayaka dismissed Ritu and gave away merely three scoring runs before the captain's chaos, with Rabeya Khan, Nahida Akter, captain Joty and Marufa Akter all sent back as the Lankan team snatched the triumph at the final moment.

Finally, it was a contest of nerve. The highly experienced Lankan captain, who directed away a few of fellow players as she prepared to bowl the final over, held hers. The opposition could not.

There will be many doubts about Bangladesh's batting performance. They could easily have been needing 270 or 280 with Sri Lanka seeming settled on 159 with four wickets down in the 30th bowling phase, but rather the required total was much lower.

However, Bangladesh displayed insufficient purpose from ball one, scoring at below 2.5 scoring rate during the powerplay, suffering a top-order collapse, and eventually making themselves excessive to do.

But whatever problems there are with their batting approach, if they had seized their chances in the fielding department, that 203 total goal would have been substantially less.

It required them three tries to terminate the 72-run partnership second-wicket, with wicketkeeper Nigar Sultana not managing to take a challenging opportunity as wicketkeeper to send back Perera on 23 runs before the captain got a reprieve from a return catch opportunity against Rabeya.

Perera was missed further on 55 and 63, the latter chance traveling directly to Jhilik at cover, before finally being trapped leg before wicket by Shorna as she attempted to increase the tempo with teammates falling beside her.

Subsequently in the batting effort, there was furthermore a failed stumping and a failed run-out, while the second one was a slightly regrettable, with Rubya Haider substituting with the gloves due to an physical problem to Joty.

Sadly for Bangladesh, such fielding issues are far from a isolated incident. They've dropped 14 catches from a possible 27 chances at this competition and display the poorest fielding effectiveness (48.1 percent) of the participating teams.

They are a side who are overall moving in the right direction – they are playing in only their second one-day World Cup after all – but substandard fielding performance is a prominent concern which demands focus.