Sri Lanka beats Bangladesh to preserve their tournament hopes breathing

ICC Women's World Cup, Navi Mumbai

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

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

Sri Lanka emerge victorious by seven runs margin

The Lankan cricket team secured four wickets in the last over to complete a thrilling win over their opponents and preserve their faint chances of qualifying for the tournament knockout stage ongoing.

Needing a attainable score of 203 on a good batting surface in the Mumbai stadium, Bangladesh needed nine more runs from the final six balls.

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

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

Bangladesh, however, experienced a fifth consecutive defeat since securing victory in their tournament opener against the Pakistani team and have been knocked out.

While the Bangladeshi side made the ideal beginning, with Marufa Akter striking with the initial ball of the encounter to dismiss Gunaratne, they were deservedly punished for a subpar fielding effort.

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

Even though Athapaththu could not capitalise, dismissed leg before wicket for 46 a single bowl after being missed by Rabeya, Hasini Perera forced the opposition pay.

She achieved a debut international fifty, making 85 from 99 bowls and building an crucial 74-run stand fifth-wicket association with De Silva.

The Bangladeshi team, guided by Shorna Akter's three wickets for 27 runs, pulled themselves back to the game, with Nilakshi's removal in the 34th bowling segment triggering a Lankan batting collapse from 174 with four wickets down to 202 total.

While batting second, Sri Lanka's initial pace attack Malki Madara and Udeshika Prabodhani contained the opposition to 23 for one in a disappointing initial phase and they were afterwards diminished to 44 for three.

Sharmin Akter and Joty restored their innings, adding 82 for the fourth wicket collaboration before the batter retired hurt for a resolute 64 in the 36th bowling phase.

It was advantage Bangladesh approaching the last two bowling phases, with only 12 runs needed.

Nevertheless, Sugandika Dasanayaka dismissed Ritu and conceded only three runs before the captain's chaos, with Rabeya Khan, Nahida, skipper Joty and Marufa all removed as Sri Lanka grabbed the win at the final moment.

Finally, it was a match of nerve. The seasoned Lankan captain, who moved aside a handful of team-mates as she set herself to deliver the decisive over, kept her nerve. The opposition could not.

There will be many doubts about Bangladesh's batting performance. They possibly have been chasing 270 or 280 with the Lankan team appearing settled on 159 with four wickets down in the 30th over, but in contrast the target was considerably smaller.

Nevertheless, the batting side showed little aggression from ball one, making runs at below 2.5 runs per over during the powerplay, undergoing a top-order collapse, and finally forcing themselves excessive to accomplish.

But no matter what problems there are with their batting approach, if they had accepted their catches in the fielding department, that 203-run objective would have been substantially less.

It needed them three tries to end the 72-run partnership second-wicket association, with keeper Nigar Sultana failing to hold a difficult opportunity behind the stumps to send back Hasini Perera on 23 runs before the captain was spared from a return catch chance against Rabeya Khan.

Perera was spilled further on 55 runs and her score of 63, the last attempt traveling straight to Jhilik at cover field, before finally being dismissed lbw by Shorna as she sought to increase the tempo with partners getting out beside her.

Afterwards in the batting effort, there was additionally a failed stumping and a missed run-out, even though the second one was a slightly regrettable, with Rubya Haider substituting with the wicketkeeping gloves after an fitness issue to the regular keeper.

Regrettably for Bangladesh, such fielding problems are far from a one-off. They've dropped 14 catches from a available 27 at this tournament and boast the worst catch efficiency (48.1%) of the competing sides.

They are a side who are typically heading in the right direction – they are competing in only their second one-day World Cup in the end – but poor fielding performance is a obvious issue which requires focus.