Sri Lanka beats Bangladesh to maintain their World Cup tournament hopes alive

Women's Cricket World Cup, Mumbai

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

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

The Lankan side win by seven runs

Sri Lanka secured four wickets in the final over to seal a thrilling triumph over their opponents and maintain their faint aspirations of qualifying for the World Cup semi-finals ongoing.

Needing a below-par target of 203 on a favorable wicket in the Mumbai stadium, the Bangladeshi team needed nine additional runs from the remaining six bowls.

Nevertheless, Lankan skipper Athapaththu took three important dismissals in four bowls and Nilakshi de Silva ran out Nahida to bring about a exciting win for the Lankan team.

The victory – the Lankan team's first of the World Cup after three unsuccessful matches and two washed-out matches against the Australian team and the Kiwi side – moves them level on four tournament points with the Indian team and the New Zealand side, who face each other on the coming Thursday.

Bangladesh, however, suffered a fifth consecutive loss since winning their first match against Pakistan and have been knocked out.

Although Bangladesh made the perfect start, with Marufa striking with the initial ball of the encounter to send back Gunaratne, they were rightfully penalized for a disappointing fielding performance.

They offered reprieves to Perera, who was spilled three times, and Athapaththu.

Although Athapaththu could not capitalise, dismissed lbw for 46 a single bowl after being missed by Rabeya, Hasini Perera made Bangladesh pay.

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

Bangladesh, led by Shorna Akter's impressive bowling figures, dragged themselves back to the contest, with Nilakshi's wicket in the 34th over triggering a Sri Lanka collapse from 174 for four to 202 complete.

While batting second, Sri Lanka's initial pace attack Madara and Udeshika Prabodhani contained Bangladesh to 23 for one in a uninspiring powerplay and they were subsequently reduced to 44 for three.

Sharmin and Nigar Sultana Joty restored their innings, contributing 82 for the fourth wicket before Sharmin withdrew due to injury for a resolute 64 in the 36th bowling phase.

It was leaning toward the chasing team approaching the last two overs, with just 12 additional runs needed.

Yet, Dasanayaka sent back Ritu and allowed merely three scoring runs before Athapaththu's chaos, with Rabeya, Nahida, skipper Joty and Marufa Akter all sent back as the Lankan team grabbed the victory at the final moment.

Ultimately, it was a match of composure. The very experienced Athapaththu, who moved aside a several of teammates as she got ready to bowl the final over, held her nerve. Bangladesh could not.

There will be many doubts about Bangladesh's batting effort. They might well have been pursuing 270 or 280 with the Lankan team seeming comfortable on 159 with four wickets down in the 30th bowling phase, but rather the target was much lower.

Nevertheless, the batting side lacked intent from ball one, scoring at under 2.5 runs each over during the initial phase, experiencing a initial wicket loss, and ultimately forcing themselves too much to do.

But no matter what issues there are with their batting approach, if they had accepted their chances in the fielding department, that 203 total target would have been considerably smaller.

It required them three attempts to end the 72-run stand second-wicket collaboration, with keeper Joty not managing to grab a difficult chance behind the stumps to dismiss Perera on 23 before the captain got a reprieve from a caught and bowled chance chance against Rabeya.

The batter was missed further on 55 and 63, the last attempt going right to Rubya Haider Jhilik at cover position, before finally being trapped lbw by Shorna Akter as she tried to increase the tempo with teammates getting out near her.

Subsequently in the batting effort, there was additionally a stumping chance missed and a failed run-out, even though the run-out chance was a little unfortunate, with Rubya Haider substituting with the gloves due to an fitness issue to the regular keeper.

Sadly for the team, such fielding problems are not at all a isolated incident. They've failed to catch 14 opportunities from a potential 27 chances at this World Cup and display the poorest fielding effectiveness (48.1 percent) of the competing sides.

They are a team who are overall moving in the right direction – they are competing in just their second 50-over World Cup in the end – but substandard fielding standards is a prominent concern which demands improvement.