Sri Lanka defeats Bangladesh to preserve their campaign ongoing

Women's Cricket World Cup, Navi Mumbai

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

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

The Lankan side emerge victorious by seven runs margin

The Lankan cricket team claimed four wickets in the last innings segment to achieve a thrilling win over their opponents and maintain their narrow chances of qualifying for the World Cup semi-finals intact.

Pursuing a attainable score of 203 on a favorable wicket in Navi Mumbai, Bangladesh needed nine additional runs from the final six bowls.

However, Lankan skipper Athapaththu claimed three important dismissals in four bowls and de Silva ran out Nahida to secure a dramatic win for Sri Lanka.

The win – Sri Lanka's first of the competition after three defeats and two no-results against the Australian team and the Kiwi side – moves them level on four tournament points with the Indian team and the New Zealand side, who face each other on the coming Thursday.

The Bangladeshi team, on the other hand, endured a fifth consecutive defeat since winning their tournament opener against Pakistan and have been removed from contention.

Although Bangladesh made the perfect start, with Marufa Akter taking a wicket with the first delivery of the match to send back Vishmi Gunaratne, they were appropriately penalized for a poor fielding performance.

They provided reprieves to Perera, who was dropped multiple times, and Athapaththu.

Even though the Sri Lankan skipper failed to take advantage, removed lbw for 46 one ball after being put down by Rabeya, Hasini Perera forced Bangladesh suffer.

She achieved a maiden international half-century, scoring 85 from 99 bowls and contributing to an crucial 74-run stand fifth-wicket with De Silva.

Bangladesh, spearheaded by Shorna Akter's impressive bowling figures, pulled themselves back in the game, with Nilakshi's removal in the 34th innings segment initiating a Lankan collapse from 174-4 to 202 complete.

While batting second, Sri Lanka's opening bowlers Madara and Udeshika Prabodhani limited Bangladesh to 23-1 in a lacklustre initial phase and they were afterwards diminished to 44 for three.

Sharmin Akter and Joty reconstructed their innings, contributing 82 runs for the fourth wicket collaboration before the batter withdrew due to injury for a determined 64 in the 36th bowling phase.

It was advantage Bangladesh heading into the remaining two overs, with just 12 additional runs required.

However, Dasanayaka sent back Ritu and gave away just three runs before the captain's decisive intervention, with Rabeya Khan, Nahida, captain Joty and Marufa Akter all removed as the Lankan team snatched the triumph at the death.

Ultimately, it was a contest of nerve. The highly experienced Lankan captain, who directed away a few of team-mates as she set herself to deliver the decisive over, kept hers. The opposition failed to.

There will be plenty of inquiries about Bangladesh's batting performance. They might well have been chasing 270 to 280 with the Lankan team looking comfortable on 159-4 in the 30th over, but rather the required total was significantly less.

Nevertheless, the batting side lacked aggression from the very beginning, accumulating runs at below 2.5 runs per over during the initial phase, undergoing a initial wicket loss, and finally forcing themselves too much to do.

But whatever problems there are with their batting approach, if they had taken their opportunities in the fielding area, that 203 total objective would have been substantially smaller.

It needed them three efforts to terminate the 72-run partnership second-wicket collaboration, with keeper Nigar Sultana failing to take a challenging chance behind the stumps to dismiss Perera on 23 before Athapaththu was spared from a return catch opportunity against Rabeya.

Perera was missed again on 55 runs and 63, the final opportunity traveling straight to Rubya Haider Jhilik at cover, before finally being dismissed lbw by Shorna Akter as she tried to up the ante with partners being dismissed around her.

Subsequently in the innings, there was additionally a failed stumping and a failed run-out, even though the second one was a slightly unfortunate, with Jhilik substituting with the keeping duties due to an fitness issue to the regular keeper.

Regrettably for Bangladesh, such fielding problems are not at all a single occurrence. They've missed 14 opportunities from a potential 27 chances at this World Cup and have the worst catching success rate (48.1%) of the eight teams.

They are a team who are typically heading in the right direction – they are playing in merely their second 50-over World Cup ultimately – but inadequate fielding performance is a glaring concern which needs improvement.