Sri Lanka beats the Bangladeshi side to maintain their World Cup tournament hopes ongoing

Women's Cricket World Cup, Navi Mumbai

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

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

Sri Lanka emerge victorious by seven runs margin

Sri Lanka claimed four crucial dismissals in the last over to complete a heart-stopping win over Bangladesh and preserve their faint chances of qualifying for the tournament knockout stage alive.

Pursuing a below-par target of 203 on a favorable wicket in Navi Mumbai, Bangladesh required nine additional runs from the remaining six balls.

Yet, Sri Lanka captain Chamari Athapaththu took three crucial wickets in four bowls and Nilakshi de Silva dismissed via run-out Nahida to achieve a dramatic win for Sri Lanka.

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

The Bangladeshi team, in contrast, endured a fifth consecutive loss since winning their initial game against Pakistan and have been removed from contention.

While Bangladesh got off to the ideal beginning, with Marufa Akter taking a wicket with the first delivery of the match to send back Gunaratne, they were deservedly punished for a disappointing fielding effort.

They gifted lifelines to Hasini Perera, who was spilled on three occasions, and the Lankan captain.

While the Sri Lankan skipper could not take advantage, dismissed leg before wicket for 46 a single bowl after being missed by Rabeya, Hasini Perera forced Bangladesh regret it.

She scored a debut international fifty, accumulating 85 from 99 deliveries and building an significant 74-run stand fifth-wicket association with Nilakshi de Silva.

Bangladesh, spearheaded by Shorna's impressive bowling figures, fought themselves back into the game, with Nilakshi's dismissal in the 34th over causing a Lankan batting collapse from 174-4 to 202 complete.

While batting second, the Lankan team's initial pace attack Madara and Prabodhani contained Bangladesh to 23-1 in a uninspiring opening overs and they were subsequently reduced to 44 for three.

Sharmin and Joty rebuilt their batting effort, contributing an 82-run partnership for the fourth wicket collaboration before the batter withdrew due to injury for a determined 64 in the 36th innings segment.

It was advantage the chasing team heading into the last two innings segments, with merely 12 additional runs required.

Nevertheless, Sugandika Dasanayaka sent back Ritu Moni and gave away only three scoring runs before the captain's dramatic spell, with Rabeya Khan, Nahida, skipper Joty and Marufa Akter all dismissed as Sri Lanka grabbed the win at the final moment.

Ultimately, it was a game of nerve. The seasoned Lankan captain, who ushered away a handful of teammates as she set herself to deliver the last over, kept her nerve. Bangladesh could not.

There will be plenty of questions about Bangladesh's batting effort. They possibly have been needing 270 or 280 with Sri Lanka appearing at ease on 159-4 in the 30th bowling phase, but rather the chase was considerably smaller.

Nevertheless, Bangladesh lacked aggression from ball one, making runs at less than 2.5 runs per over during the powerplay, suffering a early batting collapse, and eventually forcing themselves overwhelming to accomplish.

But whatever problems there are with their batting lineup, if they had taken their chances in the fielding department, that 203-run target would have been significantly lower.

It needed them three tries to break the 72-run second-wicket, with wicketkeeper Nigar Sultana failing to hold a challenging chance behind the stumps to remove Hasini Perera on 23 before Athapaththu was spared from a caught and bowled chance possibility against Rabeya.

Perera was dropped again on 55 runs and her score of 63, the final opportunity traveling directly to Rubya Haider Jhilik at cover, before finally being dismissed lbw by Shorna as she sought to increase the tempo with batting partners getting out around her.

Subsequently in the innings, there was also a failed stumping and a failed run-out, even though the run-out chance was a somewhat unlucky, with Jhilik substituting with the wicketkeeping gloves due to an physical problem to Joty.

Unfortunately for the team, such fielding woes are far from a single occurrence. They've missed 14 opportunities from a potential 27 at this World Cup and have the poorest catch efficiency (less than 50%) of the competing sides.

They are a side who are overall moving in the correct path – they are participating in only their second one-day World Cup in the end – but poor fielding is a obvious problem which demands focus.