Sri Lanka defeats Bangladesh to preserve their tournament hopes alive

Women's Cricket World Cup, Mumbai

Sri Lanka 202 (48.4 overs): Perera 85 (99); Shorna 3-27

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

The Lankan side emerge victorious by seven runs margin

The Lankan cricket team secured four wickets in the last over to complete a thrilling win over Bangladesh and preserve their slim hopes of making it for the World Cup semi-finals alive.

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

Yet, Lankan skipper Athapaththu claimed three important dismissals in four bowls and Nilakshi de Silva dismissed via run-out Nahida Akter to bring about a dramatic win for Sri Lanka.

The victory – the Lankan team's maiden of the tournament after three defeats and two washed-out matches against the Australian team and the Kiwi side – pushes them tied on four match points with the Indian team and New Zealand, who meet each other on Thursday.

The Bangladeshi team, in contrast, endured a fifth consecutive loss since winning their first match against the Pakistani team and have been removed from contention.

Although Bangladesh got off to the ideal beginning, with Marufa taking a wicket with the first delivery of the encounter to dismiss Vishmi Gunaratne, they were rightfully penalized for a subpar fielding effort.

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

Although Athapaththu could not take advantage, removed leg before wicket for 46 a single bowl after being missed by Rabeya Khan, Hasini Perera forced Bangladesh suffer.

She achieved a maiden international fifty, scoring 85 from 99 bowls and building an important 74-run partnership fifth-wicket with De Silva.

Bangladesh, spearheaded by Shorna Akter's impressive bowling figures, pulled themselves back to the match, with Nilakshi's dismissal in the 34th over initiating a Lankan batting collapse from 174 for four to 202 complete.

During their chase, Sri Lanka's initial pace attack Madara and Udeshika Prabodhani limited Bangladesh to 23 with one wicket down in a uninspiring initial phase and they were subsequently brought down to 44-3.

Sharmin Akter and Joty restored their batting effort, adding 82 for the fourth wicket before Sharmin retired hurt for a determined 64 in the 36th innings segment.

It was leaning toward the chasing team entering the final two overs, with merely 12 runs needed.

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

Finally, it was a contest of nerves. The very experienced Athapaththu, who moved aside a several of teammates as she set herself to bowl the decisive over, held hers. The opposition did not.

There will be many inquiries about Bangladesh's batting performance. They might well have been pursuing 270 to 280 with the Lankan team appearing comfortable on 159 with four wickets down in the 30th over, but in contrast the target was significantly less.

However, Bangladesh showed little intent from the very beginning, making runs at below 2.5 runs per over during the opening overs, suffering a early batting collapse, and eventually leaving themselves overwhelming to do.

But no matter what problems there are with their batting approach, if they had seized their chances in the fielding area, that 203-run objective would have been substantially smaller.

It needed them three efforts to end the 72-run stand second-wicket, with keeper Joty not managing to hold a tough opportunity while keeping to remove Perera on 23 before Athapaththu survived from a caught and bowled chance opportunity against Rabeya Khan.

The batter was missed again on 55 runs and 63 runs, the latter chance flying right to Rubya Haider Jhilik at cover field, before ultimately being trapped leg before wicket by Shorna Akter as she sought to accelerate the scoring with batting partners being dismissed beside her.

Later in the innings, there was furthermore a missed stumping and a failed run-out, although the second one was a somewhat unfortunate, with Rubya Haider deputising with the keeping duties after an injury to Joty.

Sadly for Bangladesh, such fielding woes are not at all a one-off. They've missed 14 opportunities from a possible 27 chances at this tournament and have the worst catch efficiency (48.1%) of the competing sides.

They are a squad who are overall heading in the proper way – they are competing in just their second 50-over World Cup after all – but inadequate fielding standards is a glaring issue which requires improvement.