Sri Lanka defeats Bangladesh to preserve their World Cup tournament hopes alive

Women's Cricket World Cup, Navi Mumbai

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

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

The Lankan side win by seven runs margin

The Lankan cricket team secured four crucial dismissals in the final innings segment to seal a thrilling victory over their opponents and preserve their narrow aspirations of making it for the tournament knockout stage intact.

Needing a modest target of 203 on a good batting surface in Navi Mumbai, Bangladesh required nine runs from the last six balls.

Yet, Lankan skipper Athapaththu claimed three wickets in four balls and Nilakshi de Silva dismissed via run-out Nahida Akter to achieve a exciting success for Sri Lanka.

The triumph – the Lankan team's initial of the tournament after three unsuccessful matches and two washed-out matches against the Australian team and New Zealand – elevates them tied on four match points with the Indian team and the New Zealand side, who face each other on the coming Thursday.

Bangladesh, on the other hand, experienced a fifth straight loss since securing victory in their first match against the Pakistani team and have been eliminated.

Although the Bangladeshi side made the excellent commencement, with Marufa striking with the first delivery of the match to remove Gunaratne, they were appropriately punished for a subpar fielding effort.

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

Although the Sri Lankan skipper could not capitalise, dismissed leg before wicket for 46 a single bowl after being missed by Rabeya, Hasini Perera forced Bangladesh suffer.

She achieved a maiden international fifty, accumulating 85 from 99 bowls and building an significant 74-run fifth-wicket with Nilakshi de Silva.

Bangladesh, led by Shorna Akter's 3-27, dragged themselves back to the match, with De Silva's removal in the 34th bowling segment initiating a Sri Lanka downfall from 174 with four wickets down to 202 complete.

In reply, Sri Lanka's opening bowlers Madara and Prabodhani restricted the opposition to 23 for one in a disappointing opening overs and they were subsequently diminished to 44 with three wickets lost.

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

It was leaning toward Bangladesh heading into the remaining two bowling phases, with just 12 more runs necessary.

Yet, Sugandika Dasanayaka removed Ritu and allowed only three scoring runs before the captain's decisive intervention, with Rabeya Khan, Nahida, skipper Joty and Marufa all dismissed as Sri Lanka snatched the win at the death.

Finally, it was a contest of composure. The highly experienced Lankan captain, who ushered away a few of fellow players as she prepared to bowl the decisive over, maintained her composure. The opposition could not.

There will be plenty of questions about Bangladesh's batting performance. They could easily have been pursuing 270 to 280 with the Lankan team looking at ease on 159 with four wickets down in the 30th bowling phase, but rather the chase was considerably smaller.

However, Bangladesh showed little intent from the start, accumulating runs at less than 2.5 scoring rate during the opening overs, suffering a early batting collapse, and finally making themselves excessive to accomplish.

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

It took them three efforts to end the 72-run partnership second-wicket, with wicketkeeper Nigar Sultana not managing to take a difficult chance behind the stumps to send back Perera on 23 runs before the captain survived from a return catch opportunity against Rabeya.

The batter was dropped once more on 55 runs and 63, the last attempt traveling right to Rubya Haider Jhilik at cover, before finally being trapped lbw by Shorna as she tried to accelerate the scoring with batting partners being dismissed near her.

Later in the innings, there was furthermore a failed stumping and a missed run-out, even though the run-out chance was a slightly unlucky, with Rubya Haider standing in with the keeping duties due to an physical problem to Joty.

Sadly for the team, such fielding issues are not at all a one-off. They've dropped 14 opportunities from a possible 27 opportunities at this competition and have the worst catching success rate (48.1%) of the competing sides.

They are a team who are typically progressing in the right direction – they are competing in just their second 50-over World Cup in the end – but substandard fielding is a obvious problem which demands focus.