Sri Lanka defeats Bangladesh to maintain 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); Chamari Athapaththu 4-42

Sri Lanka emerge victorious by seven runs

Sri Lanka claimed four crucial dismissals in the last innings segment to seal a nail-biting triumph over Bangladesh and preserve their narrow aspirations of making it for the World Cup semi-finals intact.

Chasing a attainable target of 203 on a favorable wicket in Navi Mumbai, Bangladesh wanted nine additional runs from the last six bowls.

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

The win – the Lankan team's first of the competition after three unsuccessful matches and two no-results against Australia and New Zealand – elevates them tied on four tournament points with India and New Zealand, who face each other on Thursday.

Bangladesh, however, endured a fifth straight loss since securing victory in their tournament opener against Pakistan and have been knocked out.

While Bangladesh got off to the ideal beginning, with Marufa Akter taking a wicket with the opening bowl of the game to dismiss Gunaratne, they were appropriately made to pay for a subpar fielding performance.

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

Even though the Sri Lankan skipper was unable to take advantage, dismissed lbw for 46 a single bowl after being put down by Rabeya Khan, Hasini Perera forced the opposition regret it.

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

The Bangladeshi team, led by Shorna's impressive bowling figures, pulled themselves back into the contest, with De Silva's removal in the 34th bowling segment initiating a Sri Lanka downfall from 174 with four wickets down to 202 total.

While batting second, Sri Lanka's starting bowlers Malki Madara and Udeshika Prabodhani limited the opposition to 23-1 in a lacklustre powerplay and they were afterwards brought down to 44 for three.

Sharmin and Nigar Sultana Joty restored their score, putting on 82 runs for the fourth wicket before the batter retired hurt for a resolute 64 in the 36th bowling phase.

It was in favor of the chasing team entering the remaining two innings segments, with just 12 more runs necessary.

Nevertheless, Dasanayaka sent back Ritu and gave away just three runs before the captain's decisive intervention, with Rabeya Khan, Nahida, captain Joty and Marufa Akter all dismissed as Sri Lanka seized the victory at the death.

Finally, it was a match of nerves. The very experienced Lankan captain, who moved aside a handful of teammates as she got ready to bowl the decisive over, kept her nerve. The opposition could not.

There will be numerous doubts about the team's batting display. They possibly have been needing 270 or 280 with the Lankan team appearing settled on 159 with four wickets down in the 30th innings segment, but in contrast the target was much lower.

Nevertheless, Bangladesh displayed insufficient purpose from the start, scoring at less than 2.5 scoring rate during the opening overs, experiencing a top-order collapse, and ultimately making themselves excessive to do.

But no matter what issues there are with their batting, if they had taken their chances in the fielding area, that 203 total objective would have been significantly smaller.

It required them three tries to break the 72-run stand second-wicket association, with keeper Joty not managing to grab a difficult chance behind the stumps to dismiss Hasini Perera on 23 runs before the captain was spared from a caught and bowled chance possibility against Rabeya.

Perera was missed again on her score of 55 and her score of 63, the final opportunity going straight to Rubya Haider Jhilik at cover position, before finally being trapped lbw by Shorna Akter as she sought to accelerate the scoring with partners getting out beside her.

Subsequently in the game, there was also a failed stumping and a missed run-out, although the second one was a little unlucky, with Rubya Haider standing in with the keeping duties following an fitness issue to Joty.

Unfortunately for Bangladesh, such fielding woes are far from a single occurrence. They've failed to catch 14 chances from a possible 27 opportunities at this competition and display the poorest fielding effectiveness (less than 50%) of the participating teams.

They are a team who are typically heading in the proper way – they are participating in only their second ODI World Cup ultimately – but inadequate fielding is a prominent problem which requires improvement.