Sri Lanka defeats Bangladesh to preserve their tournament hopes alive

Women's Cricket World Cup, Mumbai

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

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

The Lankan side win by seven runs

The Lankan cricket team took four wickets in the decisive innings segment to achieve a nail-biting win over their opponents and preserve their narrow aspirations of qualifying for the World Cup semi-finals intact.

Chasing a attainable score of 203 on a good batting surface in the Mumbai stadium, Bangladesh required nine additional runs from the final six deliveries.

Yet, Lankan skipper Athapaththu took three wickets in four balls and de Silva ran out Nahida to achieve a dramatic success for Sri Lanka.

The triumph – Sri Lanka's maiden of the competition after three defeats and two abandoned games against Australia and the Kiwi side – moves them level on four points with India and New Zealand, who confront each other on Thursday.

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

Although the Bangladeshi side got off to the excellent commencement, with Marufa striking with the first delivery of the game to dismiss Gunaratne, they were deservedly punished for a poor fielding display.

They provided lifelines to Hasini Perera, who was spilled three times, and the Lankan captain.

While the Sri Lankan skipper failed to capitalise, sent back lbw for 46 just one delivery after being put down by Rabeya, Hasini Perera forced Bangladesh regret it.

She registered a first international 50-run score, accumulating 85 from 99 deliveries and building an crucial 74-run fifth-wicket with De Silva.

The Bangladeshi team, led by Shorna Akter's three wickets for 27 runs, pulled themselves back into the contest, with De Silva's dismissal in the 34th innings segment causing a Sri Lanka batting collapse from 174 with four wickets down to 202 complete.

In reply, the Lankan team's initial pace attack Malki Madara and Prabodhani limited Bangladesh to 23 for one in a disappointing powerplay and they were afterwards reduced to 44-3.

Sharmin and Nigar Sultana Joty restored their batting effort, adding 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 heading into the final two overs, with only 12 runs needed.

However, Dasanayaka dismissed Ritu Moni and gave away just three runs before Athapaththu's decisive intervention, with Rabeya, Nahida, captain Joty and Marufa Akter all removed as the Lankan team snatched the victory at the death.

In the end, it was a game of composure. The highly experienced Lankan captain, who directed away a few of team-mates as she got ready to deliver the last over, held her nerve. Bangladesh failed to.

There will be numerous inquiries about the team's batting effort. They might well have been pursuing 270 to 280 with Sri Lanka looking comfortable on 159-4 in the 30th innings segment, but rather the required total was considerably smaller.

Yet, the batting side showed little purpose from the start, accumulating runs at under 2.5 scoring rate during the powerplay, undergoing a early batting collapse, and finally making themselves too much to achieve.

But no matter what difficulties there are with their batting lineup, if they had seized their catches in the fielding area, that 203-run target goal would have been significantly lower.

It needed them three tries to end the 72-run second-wicket, with wicketkeeper Nigar Sultana being unable to hold a difficult chance as wicketkeeper to dismiss Hasini Perera on her score of 23 before Athapaththu survived from a caught and bowled chance against Rabeya Khan.

Perera was dropped once more on 55 runs and 63, the final opportunity going straight to Rubya Haider Jhilik at cover position, before finally being given out lbw by Shorna as she sought to increase the tempo with teammates being dismissed beside her.

Subsequently in the game, there was also a missed stumping and a run-out opportunity lost, even though the second one was a slightly unlucky, with Rubya Haider substituting with the keeping duties after an physical problem to Joty.

Regrettably for the team, such fielding issues are far from a isolated incident. They've missed 14 catches from a possible 27 chances at this tournament and boast the worst catching success rate (48.1%) of the competing sides.

They are a squad who are typically moving in the right direction – they are participating in just their second one-day World Cup in the end – but poor fielding performance is a prominent concern which needs improvement.