The Lankan team overcomes Bangladesh to keep their tournament hopes alive

Women's Cricket World Cup, Mumbai

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

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

Sri Lanka win by seven runs

The Lankan cricket team took four crucial dismissals in the final over to achieve a nail-biting victory over their opponents and preserve their narrow aspirations of making it for the tournament knockout stage alive.

Needing a attainable target of 203 on a good batting surface in the Mumbai stadium, the Bangladeshi team wanted nine additional runs from the final six balls.

Nevertheless, Lankan skipper Athapaththu took three wickets in four deliveries and Nilakshi de Silva ran out Nahida to bring about a dramatic success for the Lankan team.

The triumph – Sri Lanka's first of the tournament after three unsuccessful matches and two abandoned games against the Australian team and the Kiwi side – pushes them tied on four tournament points with India and the New Zealand side, who confront each other on Thursday.

The Bangladeshi team, on the other hand, endured a fifth successive defeat since securing victory in their initial game against Pakistan and have been eliminated.

While the Bangladeshi side got off to the excellent commencement, with Marufa striking with the first delivery of the match to remove Gunaratne, they were rightfully penalized for a disappointing fielding performance.

They provided second chances to Perera, who was spilled three times, and the Lankan captain.

While Athapaththu was unable to take advantage, sent back leg before wicket for 46 a single bowl after being dropped by Rabeya Khan, Hasini Perera forced Bangladesh suffer.

She achieved a debut international half-century, making 85 from 99 bowls and sharing an important 74-run partnership fifth-wicket with Nilakshi de Silva.

Bangladesh, spearheaded by Shorna's impressive bowling figures, pulled themselves back into the game, with De Silva's wicket in the 34th innings segment initiating a Sri Lanka downfall from 174 with four wickets down to 202 total.

During their chase, the Lankan team's opening bowlers Madara and Udeshika Prabodhani limited the opposition to 23 for one in a disappointing opening overs and they were subsequently brought down to 44 for three.

Sharmin Akter and Joty restored their batting effort, putting on 82 runs for the fourth wicket stand before Sharmin retired hurt for a stubborn 64 in the 36th bowling phase.

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

Yet, Sugandika Dasanayaka removed Ritu Moni and conceded only three scoring runs before the captain's chaos, with Rabeya Khan, Nahida Akter, captain Joty and Marufa all sent back as Sri Lanka seized the victory at the final moment.

In the end, it was a match of nerve. The seasoned Athapaththu, who moved aside a few of team-mates as she prepared to deliver the decisive over, kept her composure. Bangladesh failed to.

There will be many inquiries about Bangladesh's batting effort. They might well have been pursuing 270 or 280 with Sri Lanka appearing comfortable on 159 with four wickets down in the 30th innings segment, but instead the required total was much lower.

Yet, the batting side showed little purpose from the very beginning, scoring at less than 2.5 runs each over during the powerplay, suffering a early batting collapse, and eventually leaving themselves excessive to achieve.

But whatever issues there are with their batting lineup, if they had seized their chances in the fielding area, that 203 total objective would have been substantially lower.

It took them three tries to terminate the 72-run stand second-wicket association, with keeper Nigar Sultana failing to grab a tough chance while keeping to send back Perera on her score of 23 before the captain got a reprieve from a caught and bowled chance chance against Rabeya.

The batter was dropped once more on her score of 55 and her score of 63, the last attempt going directly to Rubya Haider Jhilik at cover position, before ultimately being trapped lbw by Shorna Akter as she sought to increase the tempo with partners getting out around her.

Later in the game, there was furthermore a failed stumping and a run-out opportunity lost, although the second one was a little unlucky, with Jhilik deputising with the gloves due to an fitness issue to Joty.

Regrettably for Bangladesh, such fielding issues are far from a single occurrence. They've dropped 14 chances from a available 27 opportunities at this World Cup and boast the worst catch efficiency (less than 50%) of the eight teams.

They are a team who are generally heading in the correct path – they are playing in only their second one-day World Cup in the end – but inadequate fielding performance is a obvious issue which requires improvement.