Sri Lanka overcomes Bangladesh to keep their campaign breathing

ICC Women's World Cup, Navi Mumbai

Sri Lanka 202 (48.4 overs): Hasini Perera 85 (99); Shorna 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 margin

The Lankan cricket team took four wickets in the decisive over to complete a heart-stopping win over Bangladesh and preserve their faint chances of making it for the tournament knockout stage ongoing.

Needing a attainable target of 203 on a batting-friendly pitch in the Mumbai stadium, the Bangladeshi team wanted nine runs from the final six deliveries.

Nevertheless, Lankan skipper Chamari Athapaththu secured three important dismissals in four bowls and de Silva ran out Nahida Akter to achieve a exciting success for the Lankan team.

The triumph – Sri Lanka's initial of the tournament after three unsuccessful matches and two washed-out matches against Australia and the Kiwi side – moves them level on four points with India and New Zealand, who confront each other on the coming Thursday.

The Bangladeshi team, on the other hand, endured a fifth straight setback since securing victory in their first match against the Pakistani team and have been knocked out.

Even though the Bangladeshi side made the ideal beginning, with Marufa Akter striking with the initial ball of the game to remove Vishmi Gunaratne, they were rightfully made to pay for a subpar fielding performance.

They gifted lifelines to Perera, who was spilled on three occasions, and Athapaththu.

While Athapaththu was unable to capitalise, removed lbw for 46 one ball after being put down by Rabeya, Hasini Perera made the opposition pay.

She registered a debut international 50-run score, accumulating 85 from 99 balls and contributing to an crucial 74-run stand fifth-wicket association with Nilakshi de Silva.

The Bangladeshi team, guided by Shorna's three wickets for 27 runs, dragged themselves back into the game, with De Silva's removal in the 34th innings segment triggering a Sri Lanka collapse from 174 with four wickets down to 202 all out.

In reply, the Lankan team's starting bowlers Malki Madara and Udeshika Prabodhani limited Bangladesh to 23-1 in a lacklustre powerplay and they were later diminished to 44-3.

Sharmin and Joty rebuilt their score, adding 82 runs for the fourth wicket collaboration before Sharmin withdrew due to injury for a stubborn 64 in the 36th innings segment.

It was advantage the chasing team heading into the remaining two overs, with just 12 additional runs necessary.

However, Sugandika Dasanayaka dismissed Ritu Moni and allowed merely three runs before Athapaththu's decisive intervention, with Rabeya, Nahida, captain Joty and Marufa Akter all removed as the Lankan team seized the win at the death.

Finally, it was a match of nerve. The highly experienced Lankan captain, who ushered away a handful of fellow players as she got ready to bowl the last over, maintained her nerve. Bangladesh could not.

There will be many inquiries about Bangladesh's batting performance. They could easily have been chasing around 270-280 with Sri Lanka looking settled on 159 with four wickets down in the 30th over, but rather the required total was considerably smaller.

Yet, the batting side lacked purpose from the very beginning, accumulating runs at below 2.5 scoring rate during the powerplay, suffering a top-order collapse, and ultimately leaving themselves excessive to do.

But whatever difficulties there are with their batting, if they had taken their opportunities in the field, that 203-run target would have been substantially lower.

It needed them three efforts to end the 72-run second-wicket association, with wicketkeeper Nigar Sultana not managing to take a challenging opportunity behind the stumps to remove Hasini Perera on her score of 23 before the captain was spared from a caught and bowled possibility against Rabeya Khan.

Perera was dropped further on her score of 55 and her score of 63, the latter chance going right to Jhilik at cover position, before finally being dismissed leg before wicket by Shorna as she attempted to accelerate the scoring with batting partners falling beside her.

Later in the innings, there was additionally a missed stumping and a failed run-out, even though the latter was a little unfortunate, with Jhilik standing in with the gloves due to an fitness issue to the regular keeper.

Unfortunately for the team, such fielding issues are not at all a one-off. They've missed 14 chances from a potential 27 at this tournament and boast the poorest catch efficiency (48.1 percent) of the competing sides.

They are a squad who are overall moving in the right direction – they are playing in just their second one-day World Cup ultimately – but substandard fielding performance is a prominent issue which demands focus.