Sri Lanka beats the Bangladeshi side to keep their World Cup tournament hopes ongoing

Women's Cricket World Cup, Navi Mumbai

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

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

Sri Lanka emerge victorious by seven runs margin

Sri Lanka took four wickets in the last over to complete a thrilling win over their opponents and maintain their slim aspirations of making it for the tournament knockout stage ongoing.

Chasing a attainable target of 203 on a favorable wicket in Navi Mumbai, the Bangladeshi team needed nine more runs from the remaining six bowls.

Yet, Lankan skipper Chamari Athapaththu secured three important dismissals in four balls and de Silva ran out Nahida Akter to achieve a thrilling victory for Sri Lanka.

The victory – Sri Lanka's maiden of the tournament after three unsuccessful matches and two no-results against the Australian team and the Kiwi side – elevates them equal on four match points with India and the New Zealand side, who meet each other on the coming Thursday.

Bangladesh, in contrast, suffered a fifth consecutive setback since winning their initial game against the Pakistani team and have been removed from contention.

While the Bangladeshi side got off to the excellent commencement, with Marufa striking with the opening bowl of the match to dismiss Gunaratne, they were appropriately punished for a disappointing fielding effort.

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

Although Athapaththu failed to make it count, sent back leg before wicket for 46 one ball after being dropped by Rabeya Khan, Perera made Bangladesh regret it.

She scored a debut international fifty, making 85 from 99 deliveries and sharing an crucial 74-run fifth-wicket collaboration with Nilakshi de Silva.

Bangladesh, guided by Shorna's three wickets for 27 runs, dragged themselves back into the contest, with De Silva's removal in the 34th bowling segment initiating a Lankan downfall from 174-4 to 202 complete.

While batting second, the Lankan team's starting bowlers Madara and Prabodhani limited Bangladesh to 23 for one in a lacklustre powerplay and they were afterwards brought down to 44 for three.

Sharmin and Joty rebuilt their innings, adding 82 for the fourth wicket collaboration before Sharmin retired hurt for a resolute 64 in the 36th innings segment.

It was leaning toward the chasing team entering the remaining two innings segments, with only 12 runs needed.

Nevertheless, Dasanayaka sent back Ritu Moni and conceded merely three scoring runs before Athapaththu's chaos, with Rabeya, Nahida Akter, captain Joty and Marufa all dismissed as the Lankan team snatched the victory at the very end.

Finally, it was a game of nerves. The very experienced Lankan captain, who ushered away a few of teammates as she got ready to bowl the last over, maintained hers. Bangladesh did not.

There will be numerous inquiries about the team's batting display. They might well have been pursuing 270 to 280 with Sri Lanka looking settled on 159 with four wickets down in the 30th over, but rather the target was significantly less.

Yet, Bangladesh displayed insufficient purpose from the very beginning, making runs at under 2.5 scoring rate during the powerplay, suffering a early batting collapse, and eventually making themselves excessive to do.

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

It needed them three efforts to end the 72-run partnership second-wicket, with wicketkeeper Joty being unable to take a tough catch as wicketkeeper to remove Hasini Perera on 23 runs before Athapaththu survived from a return catch chance against Rabeya.

The batter was dropped further on her score of 55 and her score of 63, the latter chance flying directly to Rubya Haider Jhilik at cover field, before ultimately being given out leg before wicket by Shorna Akter as she attempted to up the ante with teammates being dismissed around her.

Afterwards in the game, there was furthermore a missed stumping and a run-out opportunity lost, while the latter was a little unlucky, with Rubya Haider substituting with the gloves after an injury to Joty.

Sadly for Bangladesh, such fielding problems are not at all a isolated incident. They've failed to catch 14 catches from a potential 27 opportunities at this tournament and have the worst fielding effectiveness (48.1 percent) of the participating teams.

They are a team who are typically moving in the correct path – they are participating in just their second one-day World Cup in the end – but poor fielding performance is a obvious problem which demands improvement.