Sri Lanka overcomes Bangladesh to maintain their tournament hopes breathing

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); Athapaththu 4-42

Sri Lanka win by seven runs

The Lankan cricket team took four wickets in the final innings segment to complete a nail-biting triumph over their opponents and preserve their faint hopes of qualifying for the World Cup semi-finals intact.

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

Nevertheless, Sri Lanka captain Athapaththu claimed three important dismissals in four bowls and Nilakshi de Silva dismissed via run-out Nahida Akter to secure a exciting victory for Sri Lanka.

The triumph – the Lankan team's maiden of the tournament after three unsuccessful matches and two no-results against Australia and the Kiwi side – elevates them level on four tournament points with the Indian team and the New Zealand side, who face each other on Thursday.

The Bangladeshi team, in contrast, suffered a fifth consecutive setback since winning their initial game against the Pakistani team and have been knocked out.

Although the Bangladeshi side made the excellent commencement, with Marufa striking with the opening bowl of the match to remove Gunaratne, they were rightfully punished for a subpar fielding effort.

They provided lifelines to Hasini Perera, who was dropped three times, and Athapaththu.

Even though Athapaththu could not make it count, sent back lbw for 46 one ball after being dropped by Rabeya, Hasini Perera made Bangladesh suffer.

She scored a first international 50-run score, accumulating 85 from 99 balls and contributing to an significant 74-run fifth-wicket association with Nilakshi de Silva.

The Bangladeshi team, guided by Shorna's 3-27, dragged themselves back into the contest, with Nilakshi's wicket in the 34th bowling segment initiating a Lankan collapse from 174 with four wickets down to 202 all out.

During their chase, the Lankan team's opening bowlers Madara and Udeshika Prabodhani contained Bangladesh to 23-1 in a uninspiring powerplay and they were afterwards diminished to 44-3.

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

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

Yet, Dasanayaka sent back Ritu Moni and conceded just three runs before Athapaththu's dramatic spell, with Rabeya Khan, Nahida Akter, skipper Joty and Marufa Akter all removed as Sri Lanka snatched the victory at the death.

Finally, it was a match of composure. The very experienced Athapaththu, who directed away a few of team-mates as she got ready to bowl the final over, maintained hers. The opposition did not.

There will be numerous doubts about the team's batting effort. They could easily have been needing around 270-280 with the Lankan team seeming settled on 159 for four in the 30th bowling phase, but rather the chase was significantly less.

However, the batting side lacked intent from the very beginning, scoring at less than 2.5 scoring rate during the opening overs, suffering a initial wicket loss, and eventually making themselves excessive to accomplish.

But whatever issues there are with their batting, if they had taken their chances in the field, that 203 total objective would have been substantially lower.

It took them three tries to terminate the 72-run second-wicket, with wicketkeeper Joty being unable to grab a difficult catch as wicketkeeper to remove Hasini Perera on 23 runs before Athapaththu got a reprieve from a caught and bowled chance opportunity against Rabeya Khan.

The batter was missed further on 55 runs and 63, the last attempt flying right to Jhilik at cover field, before ultimately being trapped lbw by Shorna as she attempted to up the ante with partners falling near her.

Later in the game, there was furthermore a failed stumping and a missed run-out, while the second one was a little unfortunate, with Jhilik standing in with the gloves after an injury to the regular keeper.

Regrettably for the team, such fielding problems are far from a one-off. They've missed 14 opportunities from a possible 27 chances at this World Cup and display the lowest catching success rate (less than 50%) of the participating teams.

They are a team who are overall heading in the correct path – they are participating in merely their second one-day World Cup ultimately – but poor fielding performance is a prominent problem which needs improvement.