Sri Lanka overcomes Bangladesh to keep their World Cup campaign ongoing

Women's Cricket World Cup, 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 win by seven runs

Sri Lanka secured four crucial dismissals in the final over to seal a thrilling victory over their opponents and keep their narrow hopes of qualifying for the World Cup semi-finals ongoing.

Needing a attainable score of 203 on a good batting surface in the Mumbai stadium, the Bangladeshi team required nine additional runs from the final six deliveries.

Yet, Sri Lanka captain Chamari Athapaththu claimed three crucial wickets in four deliveries and de Silva ran out Nahida Akter to achieve a thrilling victory for Sri Lanka.

The triumph – the Lankan team's first of the World Cup after three losses and two no-results against the Australian team and New Zealand – pushes them level on four tournament points with India and New Zealand, who meet each other on the coming Thursday.

The Bangladeshi team, on the other hand, experienced a fifth consecutive loss since winning their initial game against the Pakistani team and have been eliminated.

Even though Bangladesh got off to the perfect start, with Marufa striking with the initial ball of the game to send back Gunaratne, they were deservedly made to pay for a poor fielding performance.

They provided second chances to Perera, who was dropped on three occasions, and the Lankan captain.

While the Sri Lankan skipper could not capitalise, removed leg before wicket for 46 one ball after being missed by Rabeya Khan, Hasini Perera forced the opposition pay.

She achieved a first international fifty, scoring 85 from 99 balls and sharing an significant 74-run stand fifth-wicket collaboration with De Silva.

Bangladesh, led by Shorna Akter's three wickets for 27 runs, dragged themselves back to the game, with Nilakshi's wicket in the 34th innings segment initiating a Sri Lanka batting collapse from 174 for four to 202 complete.

While batting second, the Lankan team's opening bowlers Madara and Udeshika Prabodhani restricted the opposition to 23 with one wicket down in a uninspiring initial phase and they were afterwards reduced to 44 with three wickets lost.

Sharmin Akter and Joty reconstructed their innings, contributing 82 runs for the fourth wicket collaboration before the batter left the field injured for a determined 64 in the 36th innings segment.

It was in favor of Bangladesh entering the last two bowling phases, with merely 12 runs required.

Nevertheless, Dasanayaka sent back Ritu and allowed only three scoring runs before the captain's chaos, with Rabeya, Nahida Akter, skipper Joty and Marufa Akter all dismissed as the Lankan team grabbed the win at the death.

Finally, it was a game of nerves. The seasoned Lankan captain, who directed away a few of team-mates as she prepared to deliver the decisive over, kept hers. Bangladesh failed to.

There will be plenty of doubts about the team's batting effort. They could easily have been pursuing around 270-280 with Sri Lanka appearing settled on 159 with four wickets down in the 30th innings segment, but instead the target was much lower.

However, Bangladesh lacked intent from the start, scoring at less than 2.5 runs each over during the powerplay, experiencing a top-order collapse, and ultimately leaving themselves excessive to achieve.

But no matter what problems there are with their batting, if they had accepted their chances in the fielding department, that 203 total target would have been substantially less.

It took them three tries to break the 72-run second-wicket collaboration, with keeper Joty failing to take a challenging opportunity as wicketkeeper to send back Perera on her score of 23 before Athapaththu survived from a caught and bowled chance opportunity against Rabeya.

Perera was dropped once more on 55 runs and 63 runs, the last attempt going straight to Jhilik at cover, before eventually being dismissed lbw by Shorna Akter as she attempted to increase the tempo with batting partners being dismissed beside her.

Later in the batting effort, there was furthermore a failed stumping and a failed run-out, while the latter was a somewhat unfortunate, with Rubya Haider standing in with the keeping duties following an physical problem to the regular keeper.

Unfortunately for the team, such fielding woes are not at all a isolated incident. They've dropped 14 chances from a available 27 opportunities at this World Cup and have the lowest catching success rate (less than 50%) of the competing sides.

They are a squad who are typically heading in the correct path – they are participating in only their second one-day World Cup after all – but substandard fielding performance is a prominent issue which demands attention.