The Lankan team beats Bangladesh to maintain their tournament hopes alive

Women's Cricket 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); Athapaththu 4-42

The Lankan side win by seven runs

Sri Lanka took four crucial dismissals in the final over to achieve a heart-stopping triumph over Bangladesh and preserve their faint hopes of making it for the World Cup semi-finals intact.

Pursuing a attainable target of 203 on a good batting surface in Navi Mumbai, the Bangladeshi team required nine runs from the final six balls.

However, Lankan skipper Chamari Athapaththu took three wickets in four bowls and Nilakshi de Silva ran out Nahida to bring about a exciting success for the Lankan team.

The win – the Lankan team's initial of the competition after three defeats and two abandoned games against the Australian team and the Kiwi side – moves them level on four match points with the Indian team and New Zealand, who meet each other on Thursday.

Bangladesh, on the other hand, suffered a fifth successive loss since winning their initial game against the Pakistani team and have been eliminated.

Although the Bangladeshi side made the excellent commencement, with Marufa Akter taking a wicket with the opening bowl of the game to remove Vishmi Gunaratne, they were rightfully penalized for a poor fielding effort.

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

Even though the Sri Lankan skipper was unable to make it count, sent back leg before wicket for 46 just one delivery after being dropped by Rabeya, Hasini Perera forced the opposition pay.

She scored a first international 50-run score, accumulating 85 from 99 deliveries and contributing to an crucial 74-run stand fifth-wicket with De Silva.

Bangladesh, guided by Shorna's three wickets for 27 runs, dragged themselves back in the match, with Nilakshi's wicket in the 34th over causing a Lankan downfall from 174-4 to 202 complete.

During their chase, the Lankan team's initial pace attack Madara and Udeshika Prabodhani limited Bangladesh to 23 for one in a lacklustre opening overs and they were subsequently diminished to 44-3.

Sharmin Akter and Joty restored their innings, contributing 82 runs for the fourth wicket before the batter withdrew due to injury for a resolute 64 in the 36th over.

It was leaning toward the chasing team entering the last two overs, with just 12 runs necessary.

Nevertheless, Dasanayaka removed Ritu and conceded only three runs before Athapaththu's chaos, with Rabeya, Nahida Akter, skipper Joty and Marufa Akter all dismissed as Sri Lanka seized the triumph at the very end.

Finally, it was a game of composure. The seasoned Lankan captain, who directed away a several of teammates as she prepared to bowl the last over, maintained her composure. Bangladesh failed to.

There will be many questions about Bangladesh's batting display. They could easily have been chasing 270 or 280 with Sri Lanka looking settled on 159 with four wickets down in the 30th innings segment, but instead the chase was considerably smaller.

Nevertheless, the batting side displayed insufficient aggression from ball one, scoring at under 2.5 scoring rate during the initial phase, experiencing a initial wicket loss, and finally making themselves too much to accomplish.

But no matter what issues there are with their batting, if they had taken their opportunities in the fielding area, that 203-run target would have been considerably smaller.

It required them three efforts to terminate the 72-run second-wicket, with keeper Nigar Sultana failing to grab a challenging catch behind the stumps to send back Hasini Perera on her score of 23 before Athapaththu got a reprieve from a caught and bowled chance against Rabeya.

Perera was spilled once more on 55 and her score of 63, the latter chance going right to Jhilik at cover position, before ultimately being dismissed lbw by Shorna Akter as she sought to accelerate the scoring with teammates being dismissed near her.

Later in the game, there was also a failed stumping and a run-out opportunity lost, even though the latter was a little unfortunate, with Rubya Haider deputising with the wicketkeeping gloves due to an physical problem to Joty.

Sadly for Bangladesh, such fielding problems are far from a single occurrence. They've dropped 14 catches from a available 27 at this tournament and display the worst fielding effectiveness (less than 50%) of the participating teams.

They are a team who are typically moving in the correct path – they are competing in merely their second ODI World Cup after all – but inadequate fielding performance is a prominent problem which needs improvement.