Sri Lanka defeats Bangladesh to preserve their World Cup tournament hopes alive

ICC Women's World Cup, Mumbai

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

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

Sri Lanka emerge victorious by seven runs

Sri Lanka claimed four wickets in the last innings segment to complete a thrilling win over their opponents and maintain their faint chances of qualifying for the tournament knockout stage ongoing.

Pursuing a modest score of 203 on a good batting surface in Navi Mumbai, Bangladesh wanted nine more runs from the last six bowls.

However, Lankan skipper Chamari Athapaththu secured three important dismissals in four balls and Nilakshi de Silva dismissed via run-out Nahida to secure a exciting win for the Lankan team.

The win – Sri Lanka's initial of the tournament after three losses and two abandoned games against the Australian team and the Kiwi side – moves them equal on four points with the Indian team and New Zealand, who meet each other on the coming Thursday.

The Bangladeshi team, on the other hand, endured a fifth straight loss since securing victory in their initial game against the Pakistani team and have been eliminated.

Although Bangladesh got off to the perfect start, with Marufa taking a wicket with the initial ball of the game to remove Gunaratne, they were deservedly made to pay for a subpar fielding effort.

They gifted reprieves to Perera, who was missed three times, and the Lankan captain.

Even though Athapaththu could not take advantage, removed leg before wicket for 46 just one delivery after being missed by Rabeya, Perera forced Bangladesh suffer.

She registered a maiden international 50-run score, scoring 85 from 99 bowls and sharing an significant 74-run stand fifth-wicket collaboration with Nilakshi de Silva.

Bangladesh, spearheaded by Shorna's impressive bowling figures, pulled themselves back into the match, with Nilakshi's removal in the 34th bowling segment causing a Sri Lanka downfall from 174 for four to 202 total.

During their chase, Sri Lanka's opening bowlers Madara and Prabodhani restricted Bangladesh to 23 for one in a uninspiring opening overs and they were afterwards reduced to 44 with three wickets lost.

Sharmin Akter and Joty rebuilt their innings, contributing 82 for the fourth wicket collaboration before Sharmin withdrew due to injury for a resolute 64 in the 36th innings segment.

It was advantage Bangladesh heading into the final two innings segments, with only 12 additional runs required.

However, Dasanayaka sent back Ritu and gave away only three scoring runs before Athapaththu's chaos, with Rabeya Khan, Nahida, skipper Joty and Marufa Akter all sent back as Sri Lanka seized the triumph at the final moment.

In the end, it was a match of nerves. The highly experienced Lankan captain, who moved aside a handful of fellow players as she set herself to deliver the last over, maintained hers. Bangladesh failed to.

There will be many questions about the team's batting display. They could easily have been needing 270 or 280 with Sri Lanka seeming comfortable on 159 for four in the 30th innings segment, but instead the required total was much lower.

However, Bangladesh showed little purpose from ball one, making runs at below 2.5 runs each over during the opening overs, suffering a top-order collapse, and eventually forcing themselves too much to accomplish.

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

It required them three efforts to break the 72-run second-wicket association, with keeper Joty being unable to take a tough chance as wicketkeeper to send back Hasini Perera on her score of 23 before Athapaththu was spared from a caught and bowled possibility against Rabeya Khan.

The batter was dropped once more on 55 and her score of 63, the latter chance traveling right to Rubya Haider Jhilik at cover, before eventually being given out lbw by Shorna Akter as she sought to up the ante with batting partners getting out near her.

Subsequently in the game, there was also a missed stumping and a failed run-out, while the second one was a slightly unfortunate, with Jhilik substituting with the gloves due to an physical problem to the regular keeper.

Sadly for Bangladesh, such fielding woes are nowhere near a single occurrence. They've failed to catch 14 chances from a available 27 opportunities at this World Cup and display the poorest catching success rate (48.1%) of the participating teams.

They are a team who are generally progressing in the proper way – they are participating in just their second ODI World Cup ultimately – but inadequate fielding standards is a obvious concern which needs improvement.