Sri Lanka overcomes Bangladesh to keep their campaign ongoing

ICC Women's World Cup, Mumbai

Sri Lanka 202 (48.4 overs): Hasini Perera 85 (99); Shorna 3-27

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

The Lankan side win by seven runs

The Lankan cricket team secured four wickets in the last innings segment to achieve a thrilling win over their opponents and preserve their slim aspirations of making it for the World Cup semi-finals alive.

Needing a modest score of 203 on a favorable wicket in Navi Mumbai, the Bangladeshi team wanted nine more runs from the final six deliveries.

Yet, Sri Lanka captain Athapaththu secured three wickets in four deliveries and Nilakshi de Silva dismissed via run-out Nahida Akter to secure a exciting success for Sri Lanka.

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

The Bangladeshi team, on the other hand, experienced a fifth successive loss since winning their first match against Pakistan and have been removed from contention.

Even though the Bangladeshi side got off to the excellent commencement, with Marufa Akter striking with the initial ball of the encounter to remove Vishmi Gunaratne, they were appropriately made to pay for a poor fielding performance.

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

Although Athapaththu failed to make it count, dismissed lbw for 46 a single bowl after being missed by Rabeya Khan, Hasini Perera made Bangladesh pay.

She scored a debut international fifty, accumulating 85 from 99 deliveries and sharing an crucial 74-run stand fifth-wicket with Nilakshi de Silva.

The Bangladeshi team, spearheaded by Shorna Akter's 3-27, fought themselves back to the match, with De Silva's wicket in the 34th innings segment causing a Lankan batting collapse from 174 for four to 202 complete.

During their chase, the Lankan team's starting bowlers Malki Madara and Prabodhani contained the opposition to 23-1 in a lacklustre powerplay and they were afterwards brought down to 44 for three.

Sharmin and Joty restored their score, putting on an 82-run partnership for the fourth wicket before Sharmin withdrew due to injury for a resolute 64 in the 36th innings segment.

It was leaning toward Bangladesh approaching the last two overs, with only 12 more runs needed.

However, Sugandika Dasanayaka sent back Ritu Moni and gave away only three scoring runs before the captain's chaos, with Rabeya, Nahida Akter, captain Joty and Marufa all dismissed as Sri Lanka grabbed the win at the final moment.

Ultimately, it was a contest of nerve. The highly experienced Athapaththu, who ushered away a few of teammates as she prepared to deliver the final over, kept hers. Bangladesh failed to.

There will be many questions about Bangladesh's batting display. They could easily have been pursuing around 270-280 with the Lankan team seeming comfortable on 159-4 in the 30th innings segment, but in contrast the required total was significantly less.

However, the batting side displayed insufficient purpose from the start, scoring at below 2.5 runs each over during the powerplay, undergoing a initial wicket loss, and eventually forcing themselves too much to accomplish.

But whatever problems there are with their batting, if they had accepted their catches in the fielding department, that 203-run target objective would have been considerably smaller.

It took them three efforts to terminate the 72-run partnership second-wicket, with wicketkeeper Nigar Sultana being unable to hold a difficult catch as wicketkeeper to remove Perera on 23 before the captain survived from a caught and bowled chance against Rabeya Khan.

The batter was dropped again on 55 and 63, the final opportunity going directly to Jhilik at cover, before finally being dismissed leg before wicket by Shorna Akter as she sought to accelerate the scoring with partners being dismissed around her.

Later in the batting effort, there was furthermore a stumping chance missed and a run-out opportunity lost, although the run-out chance was a somewhat regrettable, with Jhilik substituting with the wicketkeeping gloves following an physical problem to the regular keeper.

Unfortunately for Bangladesh, such fielding issues are not at all a one-off. They've dropped 14 opportunities from a available 27 opportunities at this competition and have the poorest catching success rate (48.1 percent) of the participating teams.

They are a side who are generally heading in the proper way – they are playing in merely their second 50-over World Cup ultimately – but substandard fielding performance is a prominent problem which needs improvement.