Sri Lanka beats the Bangladeshi side to preserve their tournament hopes ongoing

Women's Cricket World Cup, Mumbai

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

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

The Lankan side emerge victorious by seven runs

Sri Lanka took four wickets in the final over to achieve a nail-biting victory over Bangladesh and keep their faint hopes of making it for the tournament knockout stage alive.

Pursuing a below-par target of 203 on a favorable wicket in Navi Mumbai, the Bangladeshi team needed nine more runs from the final six balls.

However, Sri Lanka captain Chamari Athapaththu secured three wickets in four balls and Nilakshi de Silva ran out Nahida to achieve a thrilling victory for Sri Lanka.

The victory – Sri Lanka's maiden of the World Cup after three unsuccessful matches and two no-results against the Australian team and New Zealand – pushes them level on four match points with India and New Zealand, who meet each other on the coming Thursday.

The Bangladeshi team, on the other hand, endured a fifth straight loss since securing victory in their tournament opener against the Pakistani team and have been removed from contention.

Even though Bangladesh got off to the ideal beginning, with Marufa Akter striking with the first delivery of the encounter to dismiss Vishmi Gunaratne, they were appropriately punished for a disappointing fielding performance.

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

Even though Athapaththu could not capitalise, dismissed lbw for 46 a single bowl after being dropped by Rabeya, Hasini Perera made Bangladesh pay.

She scored a first international fifty, accumulating 85 from 99 bowls and building an crucial 74-run fifth-wicket with De Silva.

The Bangladeshi team, spearheaded by Shorna Akter's 3-27, fought themselves back in the match, with De Silva's dismissal in the 34th innings segment initiating a Sri Lanka collapse from 174 with four wickets down to 202 total.

While batting second, the Lankan team's starting bowlers Malki Madara and Udeshika Prabodhani contained the opposition to 23 with one wicket down in a lacklustre initial phase and they were afterwards brought down to 44 with three wickets lost.

Sharmin and Joty reconstructed their innings, adding an 82-run partnership for the fourth wicket stand before Sharmin withdrew due to injury for a determined 64 in the 36th over.

It was in favor of the chasing team approaching the last two overs, with merely 12 additional runs necessary.

Yet, Sugandika Dasanayaka sent back Ritu and conceded just three scoring runs before Athapaththu's chaos, with Rabeya Khan, Nahida Akter, captain Joty and Marufa all removed as Sri Lanka grabbed the victory at the death.

Ultimately, it was a game of nerves. The highly experienced Athapaththu, who ushered away a handful of teammates as she got ready to bowl the last over, maintained her nerve. The opposition failed to.

There will be plenty of doubts about the team's batting effort. They possibly have been pursuing 270 to 280 with the Lankan team seeming settled on 159 with four wickets down in the 30th bowling phase, but rather the required total was considerably smaller.

However, Bangladesh displayed insufficient intent from ball one, making runs at below 2.5 runs per over during the opening overs, experiencing a early batting collapse, and finally leaving themselves too much to accomplish.

But whatever difficulties there are with their batting, if they had taken their catches in the fielding area, that 203-run target would have been significantly smaller.

It required them three tries to end the 72-run partnership second-wicket collaboration, with keeper Nigar Sultana failing to hold a difficult chance behind the stumps to send back Perera on 23 runs before Athapaththu got a reprieve from a caught and bowled chance chance against Rabeya Khan.

The batter was dropped further on her score of 55 and 63, the latter chance flying directly to Jhilik at cover field, before eventually being dismissed lbw by Shorna as she attempted to up the ante with batting partners being dismissed beside her.

Afterwards in the innings, there was also a failed stumping and a missed run-out, while the latter was a somewhat regrettable, with Jhilik deputising with the keeping duties following an injury to the regular keeper.

Regrettably for the team, such fielding issues are nowhere near a isolated incident. They've dropped 14 opportunities from a possible 27 opportunities at this World Cup and boast the worst catching success rate (48.1%) of the eight teams.

They are a squad who are generally moving in the right direction – they are competing in just their second one-day World Cup in the end – but inadequate fielding standards is a prominent concern which demands focus.