Sri Lanka overcomes Bangladesh to keep their World Cup campaign alive

Women's Cricket World Cup, Navi 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 emerge victorious by seven runs margin

The Lankan cricket team claimed four wickets in the last over to seal a thrilling win over their opponents and preserve their slim chances of making it for the World Cup semi-finals alive.

Chasing a attainable total of 203 on a favorable wicket in the Mumbai stadium, the Bangladeshi team needed nine more runs from the final six bowls.

Nevertheless, Sri Lanka captain Athapaththu took three important dismissals in four deliveries and de Silva ran out Nahida to achieve a exciting victory for Sri Lanka.

The victory – the Lankan team's maiden of the competition after three losses and two abandoned games against the Australian team and the Kiwi side – moves them equal on four points with India and New Zealand, who confront each other on the coming Thursday.

Bangladesh, on the other hand, experienced a fifth successive loss since securing victory in their first match against the Pakistani team and have been eliminated.

Even though Bangladesh made the perfect start, with Marufa striking with the initial ball of the match to dismiss Gunaratne, they were deservedly punished for a subpar fielding effort.

They offered reprieves to Perera, who was missed on three occasions, and Athapaththu.

Although the Sri Lankan skipper failed to capitalise, removed leg before wicket for 46 just one delivery after being dropped by Rabeya Khan, Perera made the opposition suffer.

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

Bangladesh, guided by Shorna's three wickets for 27 runs, dragged themselves back to the match, with Nilakshi's removal in the 34th bowling segment causing a Lankan downfall from 174-4 to 202 total.

While batting second, Sri Lanka's opening bowlers Madara and Udeshika Prabodhani restricted the opposition to 23 for one in a uninspiring opening overs and they were later reduced to 44-3.

Sharmin and Joty reconstructed their batting effort, adding an 82-run partnership for the fourth wicket before Sharmin left the field injured for a determined 64 in the 36th over.

It was in favor of the chasing team heading into the remaining two bowling phases, with merely 12 more runs necessary.

However, Sugandika Dasanayaka sent back Ritu and conceded just three scoring runs before Athapaththu's chaos, with Rabeya, Nahida, captain Joty and Marufa all dismissed as Sri Lanka seized the win at the very end.

Ultimately, it was a game of composure. The highly experienced Athapaththu, who directed away a several of teammates as she prepared to bowl the last over, kept her nerve. The opposition failed to.

There will be many questions about Bangladesh's batting performance. They possibly have been needing 270 or 280 with Sri Lanka seeming settled on 159 with four wickets down in the 30th innings segment, but rather the target was considerably smaller.

However, the batting side showed little intent from the start, making runs at under 2.5 scoring rate during the powerplay, experiencing a early batting collapse, and finally forcing themselves overwhelming to accomplish.

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

It took them three attempts to break the 72-run partnership second-wicket, with wicketkeeper Nigar Sultana not managing to take a difficult opportunity behind the stumps to dismiss Hasini Perera on her score of 23 before the captain was spared from a caught and bowled possibility against Rabeya Khan.

The batter was spilled again on 55 runs and her score of 63, the last attempt flying directly to Jhilik at cover, before finally being trapped leg before wicket by Shorna Akter as she sought to increase the tempo with batting partners getting out around her.

Later in the game, there was furthermore a stumping chance missed and a missed run-out, while the second one was a little unfortunate, with Rubya Haider deputising with the gloves due to an fitness issue to the regular keeper.

Regrettably for the team, such fielding woes are nowhere near a one-off. They've missed 14 catches from a possible 27 at this competition and display the lowest catch efficiency (48.1%) of the participating teams.

They are a squad who are typically moving in the proper way – they are competing in just their second ODI World Cup after all – but poor fielding performance is a glaring concern which demands focus.