Sri Lanka overcomes Bangladesh to maintain their tournament hopes ongoing

ICC Women's World Cup, Navi Mumbai

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

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

The Lankan side emerge victorious by seven runs

The Lankan cricket team took four wickets in the decisive over to complete a heart-stopping win over their opponents and maintain their faint hopes of making it for the tournament knockout stage intact.

Pursuing a attainable target of 203 on a favorable wicket in the Mumbai stadium, Bangladesh required nine runs from the remaining six deliveries.

Nevertheless, Sri Lanka captain Chamari Athapaththu secured three wickets in four balls and Nilakshi de Silva dismissed via run-out Nahida to achieve a exciting victory for the Lankan team.

The win – the Lankan team's maiden of the World Cup after three defeats and two abandoned games against the Australian team and the Kiwi side – pushes them tied on four tournament points with the Indian team and the New Zealand side, who face each other on Thursday.

The Bangladeshi team, on the other hand, suffered a fifth straight defeat since winning their first match against the Pakistani team and have been knocked out.

Even though the Bangladeshi side made the perfect start, with Marufa taking a wicket with the opening bowl of the game to send back Gunaratne, they were rightfully penalized for a subpar fielding display.

They gifted reprieves to Hasini Perera, who was dropped multiple times, and the Lankan captain.

Even though Athapaththu failed to take advantage, sent back leg before wicket for 46 just one delivery after being dropped by Rabeya Khan, Perera made Bangladesh regret it.

She achieved a first international half-century, accumulating 85 from 99 deliveries and contributing to an significant 74-run partnership fifth-wicket association with De Silva.

The Bangladeshi team, spearheaded by Shorna Akter's impressive bowling figures, dragged themselves back into the game, with Nilakshi's wicket in the 34th innings segment initiating a Lankan downfall from 174 with four wickets down to 202 total.

During their chase, Sri Lanka's initial pace attack Madara and Udeshika Prabodhani limited the opposition to 23 for one in a disappointing opening overs and they were subsequently diminished to 44-3.

Sharmin and Joty reconstructed their innings, putting on 82 runs for the fourth wicket stand before the batter left the field injured for a resolute 64 in the 36th over.

It was in favor of Bangladesh heading into the remaining two bowling phases, with merely 12 additional runs required.

Yet, Dasanayaka dismissed Ritu and allowed merely three runs before Athapaththu's chaos, with Rabeya, Nahida, captain Joty and Marufa Akter all dismissed as the Lankan team snatched the win at the very end.

In the end, it was a game of composure. The seasoned Lankan captain, who ushered away a few of teammates as she prepared to bowl the last over, maintained her composure. The opposition did not.

There will be plenty of inquiries about the team's batting effort. They could easily have been chasing 270 or 280 with the Lankan team seeming at ease on 159-4 in the 30th innings segment, but rather the required total was significantly less.

Yet, Bangladesh showed little purpose from the start, accumulating runs at under 2.5 scoring rate during the initial phase, suffering a top-order collapse, and finally leaving themselves overwhelming to achieve.

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

It required them three tries to break the 72-run second-wicket association, with keeper Joty not managing to take a challenging chance as wicketkeeper to send back Hasini Perera on 23 before the captain survived from a caught and bowled possibility against Rabeya.

Perera was spilled once more on 55 runs and 63 runs, the last attempt going straight to Jhilik at cover field, before finally being trapped lbw by Shorna as she tried to accelerate the scoring with batting partners falling near her.

Subsequently in the innings, there was furthermore a failed stumping and a missed run-out, even though the run-out chance was a little unlucky, with Rubya Haider substituting with the gloves following an physical problem to the regular keeper.

Regrettably for the team, such fielding woes are nowhere near a isolated incident. They've missed 14 catches from a available 27 at this World Cup and display the worst fielding effectiveness (48.1 percent) of the eight teams.

They are a side who are overall progressing in the right direction – they are participating in only their second ODI World Cup ultimately – but poor fielding is a glaring issue which needs attention.