Sri Lanka beats Bangladesh to keep their World Cup campaign alive

ICC Women's World Cup, Navi Mumbai

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

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

Sri Lanka emerge victorious by seven runs

Sri Lanka took four crucial dismissals in the decisive over to complete a heart-stopping victory over their opponents and preserve their faint hopes of making it for the World Cup semi-finals ongoing.

Chasing a below-par score of 203 on a batting-friendly pitch in Navi Mumbai, Bangladesh needed nine runs from the remaining six balls.

Nevertheless, Sri Lanka captain Athapaththu claimed three crucial wickets in four bowls and Nilakshi de Silva dismissed via run-out Nahida Akter to bring about a exciting success for Sri Lanka.

The victory – Sri Lanka's first of the competition after three losses and two abandoned games against the Australian team and the Kiwi side – elevates them tied on four tournament points with the Indian team and the New Zealand side, who confront each other on the coming Thursday.

Bangladesh, on the other hand, experienced a fifth successive setback since securing victory in their first match against the Pakistani team and have been removed from contention.

Even though Bangladesh made the ideal beginning, with Marufa striking with the first delivery of the match to remove Gunaratne, they were rightfully penalized for a poor fielding performance.

They offered second chances to Perera, who was dropped multiple times, and the Lankan captain.

Even though the Sri Lankan skipper was unable to capitalise, sent back lbw for 46 a single bowl after being dropped by Rabeya, Hasini Perera forced Bangladesh suffer.

She achieved a first international 50-run score, scoring 85 from 99 bowls and contributing to an significant 74-run fifth-wicket association with Nilakshi de Silva.

Bangladesh, guided by Shorna Akter's impressive bowling figures, fought themselves back in the game, with De Silva's removal in the 34th over initiating a Sri Lanka downfall from 174 with four wickets down to 202 complete.

In reply, the Lankan team's starting bowlers Madara and Udeshika Prabodhani contained the opposition to 23 with one wicket down in a disappointing initial phase and they were subsequently brought down to 44 with three wickets lost.

Sharmin and Nigar Sultana Joty reconstructed their batting effort, putting on 82 for the fourth wicket collaboration before the batter withdrew due to injury for a stubborn 64 in the 36th bowling phase.

It was advantage the chasing team entering the last two overs, with merely 12 more runs necessary.

Nevertheless, Dasanayaka dismissed Ritu Moni and allowed only three scoring runs before the captain's decisive intervention, with Rabeya, Nahida Akter, skipper Joty and Marufa all removed as the Lankan team snatched the win at the final moment.

Finally, it was a contest of composure. The very experienced Lankan captain, who moved aside a few of teammates as she prepared to bowl the last over, kept her composure. The opposition failed to.

There will be plenty of inquiries about the team's batting display. They could easily have been chasing 270 to 280 with Sri Lanka seeming comfortable on 159 for four in the 30th over, but rather the chase was considerably smaller.

However, Bangladesh showed little purpose from ball one, making runs at less than 2.5 scoring rate during the opening overs, undergoing a initial wicket loss, and ultimately leaving themselves too much to achieve.

But whatever difficulties there are with their batting approach, if they had taken their catches in the fielding department, that 203-run target would have been significantly lower.

It took them three tries to break the 72-run stand second-wicket, with keeper Joty failing to take a challenging opportunity behind the stumps to dismiss Hasini Perera on 23 runs before Athapaththu got a reprieve from a return catch possibility against Rabeya.

Perera was spilled again on 55 runs and 63 runs, the final opportunity flying right to Rubya Haider Jhilik at cover position, before eventually being trapped leg before wicket by Shorna Akter as she tried to increase the tempo with batting partners getting out beside her.

Afterwards in the batting effort, there was also a missed stumping and a failed run-out, even though the run-out chance was a slightly regrettable, with Rubya Haider substituting with the wicketkeeping gloves following an physical problem to Joty.

Regrettably for the team, such fielding issues are not at all a isolated incident. They've missed 14 catches from a available 27 opportunities at this World Cup and display the lowest catching success rate (48.1%) of the eight teams.

They are a team who are typically moving in the right direction – they are participating in just their second ODI World Cup ultimately – but poor fielding is a obvious problem which demands improvement.