Sri Lanka overcomes Bangladesh to preserve their campaign alive

ICC Women's World Cup, Navi Mumbai

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

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

The Lankan side emerge victorious by seven runs margin

The Lankan cricket team secured four crucial dismissals in the decisive over to achieve a heart-stopping victory over their opponents and keep their narrow hopes of making it for the tournament knockout stage ongoing.

Needing a below-par score of 203 on a good batting surface in the Mumbai stadium, the Bangladeshi team wanted nine more runs from the last six deliveries.

However, Sri Lanka captain Athapaththu took three important dismissals in four bowls and Nilakshi de Silva ran out Nahida to bring about a dramatic win for the Lankan team.

The win – Sri Lanka's maiden of the competition after three losses and two no-results against Australia and the Kiwi side – elevates them tied on four tournament points with the Indian team and New Zealand, who confront each other on the coming Thursday.

The Bangladeshi team, however, experienced a fifth successive loss since securing victory in their first match against the Pakistani team and have been knocked out.

Even though Bangladesh made the ideal beginning, with Marufa Akter taking a wicket with the opening bowl of the game to send back Gunaratne, they were deservedly made to pay for a poor fielding display.

They gifted lifelines to Hasini Perera, who was missed multiple times, and the Lankan captain.

While Athapaththu was unable to take advantage, sent back lbw for 46 a single bowl after being put down by Rabeya Khan, Hasini Perera made Bangladesh regret it.

She registered a first international fifty, scoring 85 from 99 bowls and contributing to an important 74-run stand fifth-wicket with Nilakshi de Silva.

The Bangladeshi team, guided by Shorna Akter's impressive bowling figures, pulled themselves back to the contest, with Nilakshi's dismissal in the 34th bowling segment triggering a Lankan downfall from 174 with four wickets down to 202 total.

During their chase, the Lankan team's starting bowlers Malki Madara and Prabodhani restricted Bangladesh to 23 for one in a lacklustre powerplay and they were afterwards diminished to 44 with three wickets lost.

Sharmin Akter and Joty restored their score, contributing 82 for the fourth wicket collaboration before the batter retired hurt for a stubborn 64 in the 36th bowling phase.

It was advantage Bangladesh approaching the last two bowling phases, with only 12 additional runs necessary.

Nevertheless, Dasanayaka sent back Ritu Moni and conceded only three scoring runs before the captain's decisive intervention, with Rabeya, Nahida, skipper Joty and Marufa Akter all removed as the Lankan team grabbed the triumph at the final moment.

In the end, it was a match of composure. The highly experienced Athapaththu, who directed away a few of fellow players as she got ready to bowl the last over, kept her nerve. The opposition did not.

There will be plenty of inquiries about the team's batting performance. They might well have been needing 270 or 280 with the Lankan team appearing at ease on 159-4 in the 30th bowling phase, but rather the target was significantly less.

However, Bangladesh lacked intent from ball one, accumulating runs at below 2.5 runs each over during the powerplay, suffering a early batting collapse, and finally forcing themselves too much to achieve.

But whatever difficulties there are with their batting, if they had seized their catches in the field, that 203-run target goal would have been significantly lower.

It needed them three tries to terminate the 72-run second-wicket collaboration, with keeper Joty not managing to grab a difficult chance as wicketkeeper to dismiss Hasini Perera on 23 before the captain got a reprieve from a caught and bowled opportunity against Rabeya.

Perera was missed further on 55 and 63 runs, the last attempt traveling straight to Jhilik at cover position, before ultimately being given out lbw by Shorna Akter as she tried to up the ante with teammates being dismissed around her.

Afterwards in the innings, there was also a missed stumping and a missed run-out, although the second one was a slightly unfortunate, with Rubya Haider substituting with the gloves after an fitness issue to the regular keeper.

Sadly for Bangladesh, such fielding issues are far from a single occurrence. They've failed to catch 14 catches from a available 27 opportunities at this tournament and boast the worst catch efficiency (48.1 percent) of the participating teams.

They are a team who are overall moving in the proper way – they are participating in only their second one-day World Cup ultimately – but poor fielding performance is a prominent issue which requires improvement.