Sri Lanka overcomes Bangladesh to maintain their campaign alive

ICC Women's World Cup, Mumbai

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

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

The Lankan side win by seven runs

The Lankan cricket team secured four wickets in the final over to complete a thrilling triumph over Bangladesh and maintain their slim chances of making it for the World Cup semi-finals intact.

Chasing a below-par score of 203 on a batting-friendly pitch in the Mumbai stadium, Bangladesh wanted nine runs from the remaining six deliveries.

Yet, Sri Lanka captain Chamari Athapaththu secured three wickets in four bowls and de Silva dismissed via run-out Nahida Akter to secure a dramatic win for Sri Lanka.

The triumph – Sri Lanka's maiden of the World Cup after three losses and two no-results against Australia and the Kiwi side – elevates them equal on four match points with the Indian team and the New Zealand side, who meet each other on Thursday.

The Bangladeshi team, in contrast, suffered a fifth straight setback since securing victory in their first match against Pakistan and have been removed from contention.

While the Bangladeshi side made the perfect start, with Marufa Akter taking a wicket with the first delivery of the match to send back Vishmi Gunaratne, they were rightfully punished for a disappointing fielding effort.

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

While Athapaththu failed to take advantage, sent back lbw for 46 just one delivery after being dropped by Rabeya Khan, Perera made the opposition pay.

She achieved a first international half-century, making 85 from 99 deliveries and sharing an important 74-run fifth-wicket with De Silva.

Bangladesh, led by Shorna's impressive bowling figures, dragged themselves back to the game, with Nilakshi's removal in the 34th over triggering a Lankan downfall from 174 for four to 202 total.

While batting second, Sri Lanka's starting bowlers Madara and Prabodhani limited the opposition to 23 for one in a disappointing opening overs and they were afterwards reduced to 44-3.

Sharmin and Joty reconstructed their innings, putting on 82 runs for the fourth wicket stand before the batter withdrew due to injury for a determined 64 in the 36th innings segment.

It was in favor of Bangladesh heading into the remaining two overs, with merely 12 more runs required.

However, Dasanayaka removed Ritu Moni and allowed just three runs before the captain's chaos, with Rabeya Khan, Nahida Akter, captain Joty and Marufa all removed as Sri Lanka grabbed the triumph at the very end.

In the end, it was a match of composure. The seasoned Lankan captain, who ushered away a few of teammates as she set herself to deliver the last over, held her nerve. Bangladesh could not.

There will be many inquiries about Bangladesh's batting effort. They possibly have been chasing around 270-280 with the Lankan team seeming at ease on 159 with four wickets down in the 30th bowling phase, but instead the target was significantly less.

Nevertheless, Bangladesh showed little aggression from the start, scoring at less than 2.5 scoring rate during the powerplay, suffering a initial wicket loss, and finally leaving themselves overwhelming to achieve.

But no matter what problems there are with their batting, if they had taken their opportunities in the field, that 203-run target objective would have been substantially smaller.

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

The batter was dropped further on 55 and 63 runs, the final opportunity going right to Rubya Haider Jhilik at cover field, before ultimately being trapped leg before wicket by Shorna as she sought to up the ante with batting partners falling around her.

Later in the game, there was also a stumping chance missed and a missed run-out, while the second one was a somewhat regrettable, with Jhilik standing in with the keeping duties after an injury to Joty.

Unfortunately for Bangladesh, such fielding woes are not at all a isolated incident. They've dropped 14 catches from a potential 27 opportunities at this World Cup and display the lowest fielding effectiveness (48.1 percent) of the eight teams.

They are a team who are typically heading in the proper way – they are competing in only their second ODI World Cup ultimately – but inadequate fielding is a glaring problem which demands attention.