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

ICC Women's World Cup, Navi Mumbai

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

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

Sri Lanka emerge victorious by seven runs

The Lankan cricket team claimed four wickets in the last over to seal a nail-biting victory over Bangladesh and keep their faint hopes of qualifying for the tournament knockout stage ongoing.

Pursuing a modest score of 203 on a good batting surface in Navi Mumbai, Bangladesh needed nine additional runs from the remaining six bowls.

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

The victory – Sri Lanka's initial of the World Cup after three losses and two abandoned games against Australia and New Zealand – moves them level on four points with India and New Zealand, who confront each other on Thursday.

The Bangladeshi team, in contrast, experienced a fifth successive loss since winning their initial game against Pakistan and have been removed from contention.

Even though Bangladesh got off to the ideal beginning, with Marufa Akter striking with the initial ball of the game to dismiss Vishmi Gunaratne, they were deservedly made to pay for a disappointing fielding display.

They gifted lifelines to Perera, who was spilled on three occasions, and the Lankan captain.

Even though Athapaththu failed to take advantage, dismissed lbw for 46 just one delivery after being dropped by Rabeya, Perera forced Bangladesh pay.

She registered a debut international half-century, making 85 from 99 bowls and building an significant 74-run partnership fifth-wicket with De Silva.

Bangladesh, led by Shorna's impressive bowling figures, fought themselves back in the contest, with Nilakshi's removal in the 34th bowling segment causing a Sri Lanka downfall from 174-4 to 202 complete.

While batting second, Sri Lanka's opening bowlers Madara and Udeshika Prabodhani contained the opposition to 23 for one in a lacklustre powerplay and they were subsequently diminished to 44 with three wickets lost.

Sharmin and Nigar Sultana Joty reconstructed their score, adding 82 runs for the fourth wicket before the batter withdrew due to injury for a determined 64 in the 36th over.

It was advantage Bangladesh entering the remaining two bowling phases, with merely 12 additional runs required.

Yet, Dasanayaka dismissed Ritu and allowed merely three scoring runs before the captain's chaos, with Rabeya Khan, Nahida, skipper Joty and Marufa Akter all dismissed as the Lankan team grabbed the triumph at the final moment.

Ultimately, it was a match of composure. The highly experienced Athapaththu, who moved aside a handful of team-mates as she set herself to deliver the decisive over, maintained her composure. Bangladesh could not.

There will be plenty of questions about the team's batting effort. They possibly have been pursuing around 270-280 with the Lankan team appearing settled on 159-4 in the 30th innings segment, but instead the target was much lower.

Yet, Bangladesh showed little intent from ball one, making runs at below 2.5 runs each over during the powerplay, experiencing a initial wicket loss, and eventually forcing themselves too much to accomplish.

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

It required them three tries to terminate the 72-run stand second-wicket, with keeper Joty not managing to take a tough catch behind the stumps to send back Perera on her score of 23 before Athapaththu was spared from a caught and bowled chance opportunity against Rabeya Khan.

The batter was missed further on 55 runs and her score of 63, the final opportunity going directly to Rubya Haider Jhilik at cover, before eventually being dismissed lbw by Shorna Akter as she tried to increase the tempo with teammates getting out beside her.

Afterwards in the game, there was furthermore a missed stumping and a run-out opportunity lost, while the latter was a slightly regrettable, with Jhilik deputising with the gloves after an fitness issue to the regular keeper.

Regrettably for Bangladesh, such fielding issues are nowhere near a isolated incident. They've dropped 14 catches from a available 27 opportunities at this World Cup and have the poorest fielding effectiveness (48.1%) of the participating teams.

They are a squad who are typically progressing in the right direction – they are playing in just their second one-day World Cup after all – but substandard fielding is a prominent problem which needs improvement.