Sri Lanka beats the Bangladeshi side to maintain their tournament hopes alive

ICC Women's World Cup, Mumbai

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

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

The Lankan side win by seven runs

The Lankan cricket team secured four crucial dismissals in the final over to achieve a nail-biting victory over Bangladesh and keep their narrow hopes of qualifying for the World Cup semi-finals alive.

Pursuing a modest total of 203 on a good batting surface in Navi Mumbai, the Bangladeshi team wanted nine more runs from the final six deliveries.

Yet, Lankan skipper Athapaththu took three important dismissals in four bowls and Nilakshi de Silva ran out Nahida to secure a dramatic win for the Lankan team.

The triumph – Sri Lanka's first of the tournament after three losses and two no-results against Australia and the Kiwi side – moves them level on four points with the Indian team and the New Zealand side, who meet each other on Thursday.

The Bangladeshi team, however, experienced a fifth straight defeat since securing victory in their tournament opener against the Pakistani team and have been knocked out.

While Bangladesh got off to the ideal beginning, with Marufa striking with the opening bowl of the encounter to remove Gunaratne, they were deservedly made to pay for a poor fielding performance.

They offered second chances to Perera, who was missed multiple times, and the Lankan captain.

While the Sri Lankan skipper was unable to take advantage, sent back lbw for 46 one ball after being put down by Rabeya Khan, Hasini Perera made Bangladesh suffer.

She registered a debut international 50-run score, accumulating 85 from 99 deliveries and contributing to an important 74-run partnership fifth-wicket collaboration with De Silva.

The Bangladeshi team, led by Shorna Akter's impressive bowling figures, fought themselves back in the game, with De Silva's removal in the 34th over initiating a Sri Lanka collapse from 174 for four to 202 all out.

In reply, the Lankan team's opening bowlers Madara and Prabodhani limited the opposition to 23 with one wicket down in a uninspiring powerplay and they were subsequently diminished to 44 for three.

Sharmin and Nigar Sultana Joty restored their score, contributing an 82-run partnership for the fourth wicket before Sharmin retired hurt for a resolute 64 in the 36th bowling phase.

It was in favor of the chasing team heading into the last two bowling phases, with merely 12 runs necessary.

Nevertheless, Dasanayaka removed Ritu Moni and gave away merely three scoring runs before the captain's chaos, with Rabeya Khan, Nahida Akter, captain Joty and Marufa Akter all sent back as the Lankan team grabbed the triumph at the very end.

In the end, it was a game of nerves. The seasoned Athapaththu, who ushered away a several of fellow players as she prepared to bowl the final over, maintained hers. The opposition could not.

There will be plenty of questions about Bangladesh's batting effort. They might well have been pursuing 270 to 280 with Sri Lanka seeming settled on 159 with four wickets down in the 30th bowling phase, but in contrast the required total was considerably smaller.

Yet, the batting side displayed insufficient intent from the start, accumulating runs at less than 2.5 runs each over during the initial phase, undergoing a initial wicket loss, and ultimately making themselves too much to achieve.

But whatever problems there are with their batting lineup, if they had taken their catches in the field, that 203-run target would have been considerably less.

It took them three tries to terminate the 72-run second-wicket, with wicketkeeper Joty not managing to take a challenging chance as wicketkeeper 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 her score of 55 and 63 runs, the final opportunity going straight to Jhilik at cover field, before finally being given out leg before wicket by Shorna as she attempted to increase the tempo with teammates getting out near her.

Later in the innings, there was also a stumping chance missed and a run-out opportunity lost, even though the second one was a little regrettable, with Rubya Haider standing in with the gloves following an physical problem to Joty.

Regrettably for the team, such fielding issues are nowhere near a single occurrence. They've failed to catch 14 opportunities from a possible 27 opportunities at this tournament and display the poorest fielding effectiveness (48.1 percent) of the eight teams.

They are a side who are overall progressing in the correct path – they are participating in only their second ODI World Cup ultimately – but inadequate fielding is a prominent issue which demands attention.