Sri Lanka beats Bangladesh to maintain their tournament hopes breathing

ICC Women's World Cup, Mumbai

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

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

The Lankan side win by seven runs

Sri Lanka secured four crucial dismissals in the final innings segment to complete a heart-stopping triumph over Bangladesh and maintain their faint chances of qualifying for the World Cup semi-finals alive.

Pursuing a modest total of 203 on a good batting surface in Navi Mumbai, Bangladesh needed nine additional runs from the final six deliveries.

However, Sri Lanka captain Chamari Athapaththu took three crucial wickets in four deliveries and Nilakshi de Silva dismissed via run-out Nahida Akter to achieve a exciting win for Sri Lanka.

The win – Sri Lanka's maiden of the competition after three unsuccessful matches and two washed-out matches against the Australian team and the Kiwi side – moves them tied on four tournament points with India and New Zealand, who meet each other on the coming Thursday.

Bangladesh, on the other hand, experienced a fifth straight loss since securing victory in their first match against Pakistan and have been knocked out.

Although the Bangladeshi side made the perfect start, with Marufa striking with the initial ball of the encounter to remove Gunaratne, they were deservedly made to pay for a disappointing fielding display.

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

While the Sri Lankan skipper failed to make it count, sent back leg before wicket for 46 one ball after being dropped by Rabeya, Perera forced Bangladesh pay.

She scored a first international 50-run score, scoring 85 from 99 balls and building an significant 74-run stand fifth-wicket with Nilakshi de Silva.

Bangladesh, led by Shorna Akter's 3-27, fought themselves back to the match, with Nilakshi's removal in the 34th bowling segment causing a Lankan collapse from 174 with four wickets down to 202 complete.

While batting second, the Lankan team's opening bowlers Malki Madara and Prabodhani restricted Bangladesh to 23-1 in a uninspiring powerplay and they were afterwards reduced to 44 for three.

Sharmin Akter and Joty reconstructed their score, adding an 82-run partnership for the fourth wicket collaboration before Sharmin retired hurt for a resolute 64 in the 36th over.

It was in favor of Bangladesh entering the final two innings segments, with just 12 additional runs necessary.

Yet, Sugandika Dasanayaka sent back Ritu and allowed merely three runs before the captain's chaos, with Rabeya, Nahida Akter, captain Joty and Marufa Akter all removed as the Lankan team seized the victory at the death.

Finally, it was a match of nerve. The seasoned Lankan captain, who ushered away a handful of team-mates as she set herself to bowl the final over, kept her nerve. The opposition could not.

There will be many doubts about Bangladesh's batting performance. They might well have been chasing 270 to 280 with Sri Lanka appearing at ease on 159-4 in the 30th innings segment, but rather the required total was much lower.

Yet, the batting side displayed insufficient aggression from the start, accumulating runs at under 2.5 runs per over during the initial phase, experiencing a early batting collapse, and finally forcing themselves excessive to achieve.

But whatever problems there are with their batting, if they had seized their chances in the fielding area, that 203-run target target would have been substantially less.

It took them three efforts to break the 72-run partnership second-wicket collaboration, with keeper Nigar Sultana being unable to hold a tough chance behind the stumps to send back Perera on her score of 23 before Athapaththu was spared from a caught and bowled possibility against Rabeya.

The batter was dropped again on her score of 55 and her score of 63, the final opportunity traveling right to Jhilik at cover, before ultimately being trapped lbw by Shorna as she sought to accelerate the scoring with batting partners falling beside her.

Later in the game, there was additionally a missed stumping and a failed run-out, even though the run-out chance was a somewhat unfortunate, with Jhilik substituting with the keeping duties following an injury to the regular keeper.

Unfortunately for Bangladesh, such fielding issues are not at all a single occurrence. They've failed to catch 14 chances from a available 27 chances at this tournament and boast the poorest catching success rate (48.1 percent) of the participating teams.

They are a side who are typically moving in the correct path – they are competing in merely their second one-day World Cup ultimately – but poor fielding performance is a prominent concern which demands attention.