Sri Lanka defeats Bangladesh to keep their campaign ongoing

Women's Cricket World Cup, Mumbai

The Lankan team 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

Sri Lanka took four wickets in the final innings segment to complete a heart-stopping victory over Bangladesh and maintain their faint aspirations of qualifying for the tournament knockout stage ongoing.

Chasing a attainable score of 203 on a favorable wicket in Navi Mumbai, Bangladesh needed nine additional runs from the final six deliveries.

Yet, Lankan skipper Chamari Athapaththu took three crucial wickets in four bowls and Nilakshi de Silva ran out Nahida to achieve a dramatic win for Sri Lanka.

The triumph – the Lankan team's initial of the World Cup after three losses and two abandoned games against the Australian team and New Zealand – pushes them level on four tournament points with India and the New Zealand side, who face each other on Thursday.

Bangladesh, in contrast, endured a fifth successive defeat since winning their initial game against Pakistan and have been knocked out.

While the Bangladeshi side got off to the excellent commencement, with Marufa striking with the first delivery of the match to dismiss Gunaratne, they were rightfully punished for a poor fielding effort.

They gifted second chances to Perera, who was dropped multiple times, and the Lankan captain.

While Athapaththu was unable to make it count, dismissed leg before wicket for 46 just one delivery after being dropped by Rabeya Khan, Hasini Perera forced the opposition pay.

She achieved a maiden international fifty, accumulating 85 from 99 deliveries and contributing to an important 74-run stand fifth-wicket collaboration with Nilakshi de Silva.

The Bangladeshi team, spearheaded by Shorna's 3-27, pulled themselves back to the game, with Nilakshi's wicket in the 34th bowling segment causing a Lankan collapse from 174 for four to 202 complete.

While batting second, the Lankan team's opening bowlers Madara and Udeshika Prabodhani contained the opposition to 23-1 in a uninspiring powerplay and they were afterwards reduced to 44-3.

Sharmin and Nigar Sultana Joty reconstructed their batting effort, adding 82 for the fourth wicket collaboration before Sharmin withdrew due to injury for a determined 64 in the 36th bowling phase.

It was advantage the chasing team entering the last two innings segments, with only 12 runs required.

However, Sugandika Dasanayaka removed Ritu and gave away merely three runs before Athapaththu's decisive intervention, with Rabeya Khan, Nahida Akter, skipper Joty and Marufa all removed as Sri Lanka snatched the victory at the death.

Finally, it was a game of nerves. The highly experienced Lankan captain, who directed away a handful of teammates as she set herself to deliver the last over, kept her nerve. The opposition could not.

There will be numerous doubts about Bangladesh's batting performance. They could easily have been pursuing 270 or 280 with Sri Lanka appearing comfortable on 159 with four wickets down in the 30th over, but instead the target was significantly less.

However, the batting side showed little aggression from ball one, accumulating runs at less than 2.5 scoring rate during the powerplay, suffering a early batting collapse, and finally forcing themselves too much to do.

But no matter what issues there are with their batting approach, if they had taken their opportunities in the fielding department, that 203-run target objective would have been considerably less.

It took them three efforts to end the 72-run partnership second-wicket, with keeper Nigar Sultana being unable to take a challenging opportunity while keeping to dismiss Hasini Perera on 23 before the captain got a reprieve from a caught and bowled chance opportunity against Rabeya.

The batter was dropped again on 55 runs and 63, the last attempt going directly to Jhilik at cover, before finally being trapped lbw by Shorna Akter as she tried to up the ante with partners getting out beside her.

Afterwards in the game, there was additionally a stumping chance missed and a failed run-out, while the second one was a slightly unfortunate, with Jhilik substituting with the keeping duties due to an fitness issue to Joty.

Regrettably for Bangladesh, such fielding woes are nowhere near a isolated incident. They've missed 14 opportunities from a potential 27 opportunities at this tournament and display the poorest catch efficiency (48.1 percent) of the eight teams.

They are a squad who are generally heading in the correct path – they are participating in merely their second 50-over World Cup in the end – but inadequate fielding is a prominent concern which demands improvement.