Sri Lanka overcomes Bangladesh to preserve their tournament hopes alive

ICC Women's World Cup, Mumbai

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

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

Sri Lanka emerge victorious by seven runs

Sri Lanka secured four crucial dismissals in the decisive innings segment to complete a thrilling win over their opponents and maintain their faint aspirations of making it for the tournament knockout stage alive.

Pursuing a modest target of 203 on a good batting surface in Navi Mumbai, Bangladesh wanted nine more runs from the remaining six deliveries.

Yet, Lankan skipper Chamari Athapaththu secured three important dismissals in four bowls and de Silva dismissed via run-out Nahida to bring about a dramatic success for the Lankan team.

The victory – the Lankan team's first of the competition after three losses and two washed-out matches against the Australian team and the Kiwi side – moves them level on four tournament points with the Indian team and New Zealand, who confront each other on the coming Thursday.

The Bangladeshi team, in contrast, suffered a fifth consecutive defeat since winning their initial game against the Pakistani team and have been knocked out.

Even though the Bangladeshi side made the excellent commencement, with Marufa taking a wicket with the first delivery of the match to dismiss Gunaratne, they were rightfully made to pay for a poor fielding performance.

They provided reprieves to Hasini Perera, who was spilled on three occasions, and Athapaththu.

Although the Sri Lankan skipper could not make it count, removed leg before wicket for 46 a single bowl after being put down by Rabeya, Perera forced Bangladesh pay.

She registered a maiden international fifty, accumulating 85 from 99 bowls and sharing an important 74-run fifth-wicket with Nilakshi de Silva.

The Bangladeshi team, guided by Shorna's 3-27, dragged themselves back to the match, with De Silva's removal in the 34th over causing a Lankan downfall from 174 with four wickets down to 202 all out.

While batting second, the Lankan team's starting bowlers Malki Madara and Udeshika Prabodhani restricted Bangladesh to 23-1 in a uninspiring powerplay and they were afterwards diminished to 44 with three wickets lost.

Sharmin and Joty reconstructed their batting effort, adding an 82-run partnership for the fourth wicket before the batter left the field injured for a resolute 64 in the 36th bowling phase.

It was advantage Bangladesh approaching the last two innings segments, with only 12 runs required.

However, Dasanayaka sent back Ritu Moni and allowed merely three scoring runs before the captain's decisive intervention, with Rabeya Khan, Nahida, skipper Joty and Marufa Akter all removed as Sri Lanka grabbed the triumph at the very end.

Finally, it was a contest of nerves. The highly experienced Lankan captain, who moved aside a few of team-mates as she got ready to bowl the last over, maintained her nerve. The opposition did not.

There will be plenty of questions about Bangladesh's batting performance. They might well have been needing 270 to 280 with the Lankan team seeming comfortable on 159 with four wickets down in the 30th over, but in contrast the target was considerably smaller.

However, the batting side lacked aggression from ball one, scoring at under 2.5 runs per over during the powerplay, suffering a early batting collapse, and ultimately forcing themselves excessive to achieve.

But no matter what difficulties there are with their batting lineup, if they had accepted their catches in the field, that 203-run target goal would have been considerably less.

It took them three tries to terminate the 72-run second-wicket, with keeper Joty not managing to grab a challenging opportunity while keeping to send back Perera on 23 runs before Athapaththu was spared from a caught and bowled chance chance against Rabeya Khan.

Perera was dropped further on 55 runs and 63, the final opportunity going right to Rubya Haider Jhilik at cover, before finally being given out leg before wicket by Shorna Akter as she sought to increase the tempo with partners falling around her.

Subsequently in the batting effort, there was furthermore a stumping chance missed and a failed run-out, although the latter was a little regrettable, with Jhilik standing in with the keeping duties following an injury to the regular keeper.

Unfortunately for the team, such fielding problems are nowhere near a one-off. They've missed 14 catches from a potential 27 opportunities at this tournament and display the lowest catch efficiency (less than 50%) of the competing sides.

They are a squad who are generally progressing in the right direction – they are participating in merely their second 50-over World Cup after all – but poor fielding standards is a glaring issue which needs focus.