Sri Lanka beats the Bangladeshi side to preserve their campaign alive

ICC Women's World Cup, Mumbai

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

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

The Lankan side win by seven runs

The Lankan cricket team took four crucial dismissals in the final over to achieve a thrilling victory over Bangladesh and preserve their faint chances of making it for the tournament knockout stage ongoing.

Needing a modest score of 203 on a batting-friendly pitch in the Mumbai stadium, Bangladesh needed nine additional runs from the final six bowls.

Yet, Sri Lanka captain Athapaththu took three wickets in four balls and Nilakshi de Silva ran out Nahida Akter to secure a thrilling win for Sri Lanka.

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

Bangladesh, however, suffered a fifth straight defeat since securing victory in their first match against Pakistan and have been removed from contention.

Even though the Bangladeshi side made the ideal beginning, with Marufa striking with the initial ball of the encounter to dismiss Vishmi Gunaratne, they were rightfully punished for a poor fielding performance.

They gifted reprieves to Hasini Perera, who was missed three times, and the Lankan captain.

Even though the Sri Lankan skipper failed to make it count, dismissed leg before wicket for 46 just one delivery after being put down by Rabeya, Hasini Perera made the opposition pay.

She achieved a debut international half-century, accumulating 85 from 99 bowls and contributing to an crucial 74-run stand fifth-wicket with Nilakshi de Silva.

The Bangladeshi team, guided by Shorna's impressive bowling figures, pulled themselves back to the match, with Nilakshi's dismissal in the 34th bowling segment causing a Sri Lanka collapse from 174-4 to 202 complete.

In reply, the Lankan team's starting bowlers Malki Madara and Udeshika Prabodhani contained Bangladesh to 23-1 in a lacklustre powerplay and they were afterwards diminished to 44-3.

Sharmin Akter and Joty rebuilt their score, contributing 82 runs for the fourth wicket stand before Sharmin left the field injured for a resolute 64 in the 36th over.

It was advantage Bangladesh approaching the last two innings segments, with merely 12 runs necessary.

However, Sugandika Dasanayaka removed Ritu and conceded only three runs before Athapaththu's dramatic spell, with Rabeya, Nahida Akter, skipper Joty and Marufa Akter all dismissed as Sri Lanka grabbed the win at the very end.

Finally, it was a game of nerves. The highly experienced Lankan captain, who moved aside a several of teammates as she set herself to deliver the final over, kept her nerve. Bangladesh did not.

There will be many questions about Bangladesh's batting performance. They could easily have been needing 270 or 280 with Sri Lanka looking comfortable on 159 with four wickets down in the 30th over, but rather the target was significantly less.

However, the batting side lacked purpose from the start, accumulating runs at less than 2.5 runs per over during the opening overs, suffering a initial wicket loss, and eventually making themselves too much to accomplish.

But whatever difficulties there are with their batting approach, if they had seized their chances in the fielding department, that 203-run target target would have been significantly less.

It required them three efforts to terminate the 72-run stand second-wicket association, with keeper Joty failing to grab a challenging chance behind the stumps to dismiss Perera on 23 runs before Athapaththu survived from a caught and bowled chance against Rabeya.

The batter was spilled once more on her score of 55 and 63 runs, the final opportunity traveling right to Rubya Haider Jhilik at cover field, before eventually being dismissed lbw by Shorna Akter as she sought to accelerate the scoring with teammates being dismissed around her.

Subsequently in the game, there was additionally a failed stumping and a missed run-out, although the run-out chance was a somewhat unfortunate, with Jhilik substituting with the wicketkeeping gloves following an physical problem to Joty.

Regrettably for Bangladesh, such fielding woes are nowhere near a single occurrence. They've dropped 14 chances from a potential 27 opportunities at this World Cup and display the lowest catching success rate (48.1%) of the participating teams.

They are a team who are generally moving in the right direction – they are competing in merely their second 50-over World Cup after all – but substandard fielding standards is a obvious problem which requires focus.