Sri Lanka overcomes Bangladesh to maintain their campaign ongoing

Women's Cricket World Cup, Mumbai

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

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

The Lankan side win by seven runs margin

The Lankan cricket team claimed four crucial dismissals in the last over to achieve a thrilling triumph over Bangladesh and keep their slim aspirations of qualifying for the tournament knockout stage ongoing.

Chasing a below-par score of 203 on a good batting surface in Navi Mumbai, Bangladesh needed nine additional runs from the final six deliveries.

Nevertheless, Lankan skipper Chamari Athapaththu secured three wickets in four deliveries and Nilakshi de Silva dismissed via run-out Nahida Akter to bring about a thrilling victory for Sri Lanka.

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

Bangladesh, in contrast, suffered a fifth consecutive defeat since securing victory in their initial game against Pakistan and have been knocked out.

Even though the Bangladeshi side made the excellent commencement, with Marufa taking a wicket with the first delivery of the match to send back Gunaratne, they were appropriately penalized for a subpar fielding display.

They provided second chances to Hasini Perera, who was dropped three times, and the Lankan captain.

Although Athapaththu was unable to take advantage, dismissed lbw for 46 a single bowl after being put down by Rabeya Khan, Hasini Perera forced the opposition suffer.

She registered a debut international half-century, scoring 85 from 99 deliveries and building an important 74-run stand fifth-wicket collaboration with Nilakshi de Silva.

The Bangladeshi team, led by Shorna's three wickets for 27 runs, dragged themselves back in the match, with Nilakshi's removal in the 34th over initiating a Sri Lanka collapse from 174-4 to 202 complete.

In reply, the Lankan team's opening bowlers Malki Madara and Prabodhani restricted the opposition to 23-1 in a disappointing opening overs and they were later reduced to 44-3.

Sharmin and Nigar Sultana Joty restored their batting effort, adding an 82-run partnership for the fourth wicket collaboration before the batter retired hurt for a stubborn 64 in the 36th innings segment.

It was advantage Bangladesh approaching the final two innings segments, with merely 12 more runs necessary.

However, Dasanayaka removed Ritu and gave away only three scoring runs before Athapaththu's decisive intervention, with Rabeya, Nahida, captain Joty and Marufa all sent back as Sri Lanka seized the win at the very end.

In the end, it was a game of nerves. The seasoned Lankan captain, who moved aside a handful of fellow players as she set herself to deliver the final over, maintained hers. Bangladesh did not.

There will be plenty of inquiries about Bangladesh's batting display. They could easily have been needing 270 or 280 with the Lankan team seeming settled on 159-4 in the 30th over, but in contrast the chase was considerably smaller.

Yet, the batting side lacked aggression from the very beginning, scoring at under 2.5 runs each over during the initial phase, experiencing a early batting collapse, and eventually forcing themselves overwhelming to accomplish.

But no matter what difficulties there are with their batting lineup, if they had seized their catches in the fielding area, that 203-run goal would have been significantly lower.

It took them three tries to terminate the 72-run partnership second-wicket collaboration, with wicketkeeper Joty not managing to grab a challenging catch while keeping to remove Hasini Perera on 23 runs before Athapaththu was spared from a caught and bowled chance chance against Rabeya.

Perera was spilled once more on 55 and 63, the final opportunity going directly to Rubya Haider Jhilik at cover, before ultimately being given out leg before wicket by Shorna Akter as she attempted to increase the tempo with teammates being dismissed around her.

Subsequently in the batting effort, there was furthermore a stumping chance missed and a missed run-out, even though the run-out chance was a little unfortunate, with Jhilik standing in with the wicketkeeping gloves following an physical problem to Joty.

Unfortunately for the team, such fielding issues are far from a single occurrence. They've missed 14 opportunities from a available 27 chances at this World Cup and boast the worst catch efficiency (48.1%) of the eight teams.

They are a team who are overall heading in the proper way – they are competing in just their second 50-over World Cup in the end – but substandard fielding is a prominent concern which demands attention.