Sri Lanka defeats Bangladesh to keep their tournament hopes ongoing

ICC Women's World Cup, Navi Mumbai

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

Bangladesh 195-9 (50 overs): Joty 77 (98); Athapaththu 4-42

The Lankan side emerge victorious by seven runs

Sri Lanka claimed four wickets in the decisive over to seal a nail-biting triumph over their opponents and maintain their narrow chances of making it for the World Cup semi-finals intact.

Chasing a attainable total of 203 on a good batting surface in the Mumbai stadium, Bangladesh required nine additional runs from the remaining six bowls.

Nevertheless, Sri Lanka captain Chamari Athapaththu secured three crucial wickets in four balls and de Silva dismissed via run-out Nahida to achieve a dramatic win for Sri Lanka.

The win – the Lankan team's first of the tournament after three defeats and two washed-out matches against Australia and New Zealand – moves them equal on four match points with India and the New Zealand side, who meet each other on the coming Thursday.

Bangladesh, in contrast, experienced a fifth successive defeat since securing victory in their initial game against Pakistan and have been removed from contention.

Even though Bangladesh made the perfect start, with Marufa Akter taking a wicket with the first delivery of the encounter to dismiss Vishmi Gunaratne, they were appropriately made to pay for a subpar fielding effort.

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

While the Sri Lankan skipper was unable to make it count, removed lbw for 46 a single bowl after being put down by Rabeya Khan, Hasini Perera made Bangladesh regret it.

She scored a maiden international 50-run score, making 85 from 99 balls and contributing to an crucial 74-run fifth-wicket with De Silva.

Bangladesh, led by Shorna Akter's three wickets for 27 runs, fought themselves back in the match, with Nilakshi's wicket in the 34th innings segment causing a Lankan collapse from 174 for four to 202 all out.

While batting second, the Lankan team's starting bowlers Madara and Prabodhani contained Bangladesh to 23 for one in a uninspiring initial phase and they were later reduced to 44 for three.

Sharmin and Joty reconstructed their score, putting on an 82-run partnership for the fourth wicket before Sharmin withdrew due to injury for a stubborn 64 in the 36th bowling phase.

It was leaning toward Bangladesh approaching the remaining two bowling phases, with just 12 additional runs needed.

However, Sugandika Dasanayaka sent back Ritu Moni and conceded only three scoring runs before Athapaththu's chaos, with Rabeya, Nahida, captain Joty and Marufa Akter all removed as the Lankan team grabbed the win at the final moment.

Ultimately, it was a match of nerves. The very experienced Athapaththu, who moved aside a few of team-mates as she set herself to deliver the last over, kept her nerve. The opposition could not.

There will be numerous doubts about the team's batting display. They could easily have been chasing 270 or 280 with the Lankan team seeming at ease on 159 for four in the 30th over, but instead the chase was significantly less.

Nevertheless, the batting side showed little intent from ball one, accumulating runs at less than 2.5 runs per over during the initial phase, experiencing a early batting collapse, and ultimately leaving themselves overwhelming to achieve.

But whatever issues there are with their batting, if they had accepted their catches in the field, that 203-run target would have been significantly lower.

It needed them three tries to break the 72-run partnership second-wicket association, with keeper Joty failing to grab a difficult chance while keeping to dismiss Hasini Perera on 23 runs before the captain was spared from a caught and bowled chance against Rabeya Khan.

The batter was dropped further on 55 runs and her score of 63, the latter chance going directly to Rubya Haider Jhilik at cover position, before eventually being given out lbw by Shorna Akter as she attempted to accelerate the scoring with batting partners falling around her.

Later in the innings, there was furthermore a stumping chance missed and a run-out opportunity lost, although the latter was a slightly unfortunate, with Jhilik deputising with the gloves due to an physical problem to the regular keeper.

Unfortunately for Bangladesh, such fielding woes are far from a single occurrence. They've dropped 14 catches from a possible 27 opportunities at this competition and have the lowest catching success rate (48.1 percent) of the participating teams.

They are a side who are overall heading in the right direction – they are playing in just their second one-day World Cup in the end – but substandard fielding standards is a obvious issue which needs improvement.