Sri Lanka defeats Bangladesh to maintain their World Cup tournament hopes ongoing

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 emerge victorious by seven runs margin

Sri Lanka took four crucial dismissals in the decisive over to complete a nail-biting victory over Bangladesh and maintain their faint aspirations of making it for the World Cup semi-finals alive.

Chasing a below-par total of 203 on a favorable wicket in Navi Mumbai, the Bangladeshi team required nine runs from the remaining six bowls.

However, Lankan skipper Chamari Athapaththu claimed three wickets in four bowls and de Silva dismissed via run-out Nahida Akter to achieve a thrilling win for the Lankan team.

The victory – Sri Lanka's initial of the competition after three losses and two no-results against Australia and New Zealand – elevates them tied on four match points with the Indian team and New Zealand, who meet each other on the coming Thursday.

The Bangladeshi team, on the other hand, suffered a fifth successive defeat since winning their tournament opener against the Pakistani team and have been eliminated.

Although Bangladesh got off to the perfect start, with Marufa Akter taking a wicket with the first delivery of the game to remove Gunaratne, they were appropriately punished for a disappointing fielding display.

They provided second chances to Hasini Perera, who was missed on three occasions, and the Lankan captain.

While Athapaththu could not make it count, sent back lbw for 46 a single bowl after being missed by Rabeya Khan, Perera made Bangladesh pay.

She scored a first international half-century, accumulating 85 from 99 bowls and sharing an important 74-run partnership fifth-wicket collaboration with Nilakshi de Silva.

Bangladesh, led by Shorna's three wickets for 27 runs, pulled themselves back in the match, with Nilakshi's wicket in the 34th over triggering a Sri Lanka batting collapse from 174-4 to 202 total.

In reply, Sri Lanka's opening bowlers Malki Madara and Udeshika Prabodhani contained Bangladesh to 23 with one wicket down in a disappointing opening overs and they were subsequently brought down to 44 with three wickets lost.

Sharmin Akter and Joty restored their innings, putting on an 82-run partnership for the fourth wicket stand before Sharmin retired hurt for a resolute 64 in the 36th bowling phase.

It was leaning toward Bangladesh heading into the last two innings segments, with only 12 more runs necessary.

However, Dasanayaka sent back Ritu and gave away merely three scoring runs before Athapaththu's chaos, with Rabeya, Nahida, skipper Joty and Marufa all removed as Sri Lanka seized the victory at the very end.

In the end, it was a match of nerve. The very experienced Lankan captain, who moved aside a few of fellow players as she got ready to deliver the decisive over, held her composure. Bangladesh did not.

There will be numerous inquiries about the team's batting performance. They might well have been chasing around 270-280 with Sri Lanka seeming at ease on 159-4 in the 30th innings segment, but rather the target was considerably smaller.

Nevertheless, Bangladesh lacked aggression from the very beginning, scoring at below 2.5 runs per over during the initial phase, experiencing a top-order collapse, and ultimately forcing themselves excessive to achieve.

But no matter what issues there are with their batting lineup, if they had seized their catches in the fielding department, that 203-run target goal would have been substantially lower.

It needed them three attempts to terminate the 72-run second-wicket collaboration, with wicketkeeper Nigar Sultana not managing to hold a difficult catch as wicketkeeper to remove Perera on 23 before the captain got a reprieve from a return catch chance against Rabeya Khan.

The batter was missed again on her score of 55 and her score of 63, the latter chance going straight to Jhilik at cover position, before ultimately being dismissed lbw by Shorna as she sought to up the ante with partners being dismissed around her.

Later in the game, there was additionally a missed stumping and a missed run-out, although the second one was a little regrettable, with Jhilik substituting with the gloves after an fitness issue to Joty.

Regrettably for Bangladesh, such fielding issues are not at all a one-off. They've failed to catch 14 opportunities from a possible 27 chances at this tournament and display the lowest fielding effectiveness (48.1 percent) of the competing sides.

They are a side who are generally heading in the right direction – they are participating in only their second 50-over World Cup ultimately – but poor fielding performance is a obvious issue which needs focus.