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

Women's Cricket 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): Joty 77 (98); Chamari Athapaththu 4-42

The Lankan side emerge victorious by seven runs

Sri Lanka took four crucial dismissals in the decisive innings segment to seal a nail-biting win over Bangladesh and maintain their faint chances of qualifying for the World Cup semi-finals intact.

Needing a below-par total of 203 on a favorable wicket in Navi Mumbai, Bangladesh required nine more runs from the final six bowls.

Yet, Lankan skipper Athapaththu took three important dismissals in four deliveries and Nilakshi de Silva ran out Nahida to bring about a dramatic success for the Lankan team.

The triumph – the Lankan team's first of the competition after three unsuccessful matches and two abandoned games against Australia and the Kiwi side – elevates them tied on four match points with the Indian team and New Zealand, who face each other on Thursday.

The Bangladeshi team, in contrast, suffered a fifth consecutive setback since securing victory in their initial game against Pakistan and have been knocked out.

Although Bangladesh made the ideal beginning, with Marufa taking a wicket with the opening bowl of the match to send back Gunaratne, they were rightfully punished for a poor fielding effort.

They gifted lifelines to Hasini Perera, who was missed three times, and Athapaththu.

While Athapaththu failed to take advantage, removed lbw for 46 one ball after being put down by Rabeya Khan, Perera forced Bangladesh suffer.

She scored a first international fifty, accumulating 85 from 99 deliveries and contributing to an crucial 74-run stand fifth-wicket collaboration with De Silva.

Bangladesh, led by Shorna's impressive bowling figures, dragged themselves back to the contest, with De Silva's wicket in the 34th over triggering a Sri Lanka downfall from 174-4 to 202 total.

In reply, the Lankan team's starting bowlers Malki Madara and Prabodhani restricted the opposition to 23 with one wicket down in a disappointing opening overs and they were later brought down to 44 with three wickets lost.

Sharmin and Nigar Sultana Joty rebuilt their score, putting on 82 runs for the fourth wicket collaboration before Sharmin retired hurt for a determined 64 in the 36th over.

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

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

In the end, it was a contest of nerves. The highly experienced Athapaththu, who moved aside a handful of teammates as she set herself to bowl the last over, held her nerve. The opposition failed to.

There will be plenty of inquiries about Bangladesh's batting effort. They could easily have been chasing 270 to 280 with Sri Lanka seeming settled on 159-4 in the 30th innings segment, but instead the required total was much lower.

Yet, Bangladesh showed little intent from the start, scoring at below 2.5 runs per over during the initial phase, suffering a early batting collapse, and eventually forcing themselves overwhelming to do.

But whatever issues there are with their batting, if they had accepted their chances in the fielding area, that 203-run objective would have been significantly lower.

It took them three tries to break the 72-run second-wicket collaboration, with keeper Nigar Sultana not managing to hold a difficult chance as wicketkeeper to dismiss Perera on 23 runs before Athapaththu was spared from a return catch possibility against Rabeya Khan.

Perera was missed again on 55 and 63 runs, the last attempt going directly to Rubya Haider Jhilik at cover, before finally being given out leg before wicket by Shorna as she attempted to increase the tempo with teammates falling around her.

Later in the game, there was additionally a failed stumping and a run-out opportunity lost, while the latter was a little regrettable, with Rubya Haider standing in with the wicketkeeping gloves due to an physical problem to Joty.

Sadly for the team, such fielding problems are nowhere near a single occurrence. They've dropped 14 catches from a available 27 opportunities at this competition and display the worst catching success rate (less than 50%) of the competing sides.

They are a squad who are typically progressing in the right direction – they are participating in only their second ODI World Cup after all – but poor fielding is a prominent problem which demands focus.