Sri Lanka beats Bangladesh to maintain their World Cup campaign alive

ICC Women's World Cup, Mumbai

The Lankan team 202 (48.4 overs): Perera 85 (99); Shorna 3-27

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

Sri Lanka emerge victorious by seven runs margin

Sri Lanka took four wickets in the decisive over to seal a heart-stopping triumph over Bangladesh and preserve their slim aspirations of making it for the World Cup semi-finals alive.

Pursuing a attainable total of 203 on a good batting surface in the Mumbai stadium, the Bangladeshi team needed nine more runs from the last six bowls.

However, Sri Lanka captain Chamari Athapaththu secured three crucial wickets in four balls and Nilakshi de Silva ran out Nahida to secure a dramatic win for the Lankan team.

The victory – Sri Lanka's maiden of the competition after three defeats and two abandoned games against Australia and the Kiwi side – moves them tied on four match points with the Indian team and the New Zealand side, who confront each other on the coming Thursday.

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

Although Bangladesh got off to the excellent commencement, with Marufa striking with the initial ball of the match to send back Gunaratne, they were appropriately penalized for a disappointing fielding effort.

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

Although the Sri Lankan skipper was unable to make it count, sent back lbw for 46 one ball after being dropped by Rabeya, Perera made the opposition suffer.

She achieved a first international 50-run score, accumulating 85 from 99 deliveries and building an significant 74-run stand fifth-wicket collaboration with De Silva.

The Bangladeshi team, guided by Shorna's 3-27, fought themselves back to the contest, with De Silva's removal in the 34th innings segment causing a Lankan collapse from 174-4 to 202 complete.

While batting second, Sri Lanka's starting bowlers Madara and Udeshika Prabodhani contained the opposition to 23 for one in a lacklustre initial phase and they were afterwards diminished to 44-3.

Sharmin Akter and Nigar Sultana Joty rebuilt their batting effort, putting on 82 runs for the fourth wicket collaboration before the batter withdrew due to injury for a determined 64 in the 36th innings segment.

It was advantage Bangladesh approaching the last two overs, with only 12 more runs necessary.

Yet, Dasanayaka removed Ritu and allowed only three scoring runs before Athapaththu's dramatic spell, with Rabeya, Nahida, skipper Joty and Marufa Akter all removed as the Lankan team grabbed the victory at the final moment.

Finally, it was a contest of nerve. The highly experienced Lankan captain, who ushered away a few of teammates as she got ready to bowl the last over, kept her composure. Bangladesh failed to.

There will be numerous doubts about the team's batting display. They could easily have been needing around 270-280 with the Lankan team appearing settled on 159-4 in the 30th bowling phase, but rather the chase was significantly less.

Nevertheless, Bangladesh showed little aggression from the start, accumulating runs at less than 2.5 scoring rate during the powerplay, suffering a initial wicket loss, and finally leaving themselves overwhelming to do.

But no matter what issues there are with their batting lineup, if they had seized their chances in the field, that 203 total objective would have been considerably less.

It required them three attempts to terminate the 72-run second-wicket association, with keeper Joty failing to hold a difficult opportunity behind the stumps to dismiss Hasini Perera on 23 runs before Athapaththu was spared from a caught and bowled chance opportunity against Rabeya Khan.

Perera was missed again on her score of 55 and 63, the last attempt traveling straight to Rubya Haider Jhilik at cover, before eventually being dismissed lbw by Shorna Akter as she attempted to increase the tempo with partners getting out beside her.

Afterwards in the batting effort, there was also a stumping chance missed and a failed run-out, while the second one was a somewhat regrettable, with Rubya Haider standing in with the keeping duties due to an physical problem to the regular keeper.

Regrettably for Bangladesh, such fielding issues are not at all a single occurrence. They've dropped 14 opportunities from a possible 27 opportunities at this World Cup and display the lowest catch efficiency (less than 50%) of the eight teams.

They are a squad who are generally progressing in the proper way – they are participating in merely their second 50-over World Cup ultimately – but substandard fielding performance is a prominent problem which needs attention.