Sri Lanka overcomes Bangladesh to maintain their World Cup tournament hopes alive

Women's Cricket World Cup, Navi Mumbai

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

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

Sri Lanka win by seven runs margin

The Lankan cricket team claimed four wickets in the last innings segment to achieve a nail-biting win over their opponents and maintain their faint aspirations of qualifying for the World Cup semi-finals intact.

Pursuing a modest total of 203 on a good batting surface in the Mumbai stadium, Bangladesh required nine additional runs from the final six bowls.

Nevertheless, Sri Lanka captain Athapaththu took three wickets in four balls and Nilakshi de Silva dismissed via run-out Nahida to achieve a dramatic success for the Lankan team.

The victory – Sri Lanka's first of the competition after three losses and two abandoned games against Australia and New Zealand – pushes them level on four tournament points with the Indian team and the New Zealand side, who confront each other on the coming Thursday.

Bangladesh, in contrast, endured a fifth straight defeat since winning their tournament opener against the Pakistani team and have been knocked out.

Although Bangladesh made the excellent commencement, with Marufa Akter taking a wicket with the first delivery of the encounter to send back Gunaratne, they were appropriately penalized for a poor fielding display.

They offered lifelines to Hasini Perera, who was missed multiple times, and the Lankan captain.

While Athapaththu was unable to take advantage, sent back leg before wicket for 46 a single bowl after being dropped by Rabeya, Perera made the opposition pay.

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

Bangladesh, led by Shorna's three wickets for 27 runs, fought themselves back in the match, with De Silva's dismissal in the 34th bowling segment initiating a Sri Lanka batting collapse from 174-4 to 202 all out.

During their chase, Sri Lanka's starting bowlers Madara and Prabodhani limited Bangladesh to 23-1 in a lacklustre powerplay and they were subsequently diminished to 44 with three wickets lost.

Sharmin and Nigar Sultana Joty restored their score, contributing 82 runs for the fourth wicket stand before the batter left the field injured for a stubborn 64 in the 36th over.

It was advantage Bangladesh heading into the remaining two bowling phases, with only 12 additional runs necessary.

However, Sugandika Dasanayaka sent back Ritu and allowed only three scoring runs before the captain's chaos, with Rabeya, Nahida Akter, skipper Joty and Marufa Akter all dismissed as the Lankan team snatched the victory at the very end.

Ultimately, it was a game of nerves. The highly experienced Lankan captain, who directed away a several of team-mates as she set herself to bowl the final over, maintained her composure. Bangladesh did not.

There will be plenty of inquiries about Bangladesh's batting performance. They possibly have been chasing around 270-280 with Sri Lanka looking settled on 159 for four in the 30th innings segment, but instead the required total was considerably smaller.

Nevertheless, the batting side displayed insufficient intent from ball one, scoring at less than 2.5 runs per over during the opening overs, undergoing a early batting collapse, and ultimately making themselves overwhelming to accomplish.

But whatever problems there are with their batting lineup, if they had accepted their chances in the fielding area, that 203-run target target would have been considerably lower.

It took them three attempts to end the 72-run stand second-wicket collaboration, with keeper Joty not managing to grab a challenging catch behind the stumps to dismiss Hasini Perera on 23 before Athapaththu was spared from a caught and bowled possibility against Rabeya Khan.

Perera was spilled once more on 55 runs and her score of 63, the final opportunity going directly to Rubya Haider Jhilik at cover position, before eventually being dismissed leg before wicket by Shorna Akter as she sought to up the ante with teammates falling beside her.

Later in the batting effort, there was furthermore a missed stumping and a missed run-out, while the run-out chance was a slightly regrettable, with Rubya Haider deputising with the wicketkeeping gloves following an injury to the regular keeper.

Unfortunately for Bangladesh, such fielding woes are nowhere near a single occurrence. They've missed 14 chances from a potential 27 at this tournament and display the lowest catch efficiency (48.1 percent) of the eight teams.

They are a team who are generally heading in the right direction – they are participating in just their second ODI World Cup after all – but substandard fielding is a glaring problem which needs attention.