Sri Lanka beats Bangladesh to keep their World Cup campaign breathing

Women's Cricket World Cup, Navi Mumbai

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

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

The Lankan side emerge victorious by seven runs

The Lankan cricket team secured four crucial dismissals in the last over to achieve a nail-biting win over their opponents and keep their faint aspirations of making it for the tournament knockout stage ongoing.

Needing a below-par score of 203 on a good batting surface in Navi Mumbai, the Bangladeshi team wanted nine more runs from the remaining six deliveries.

Nevertheless, Sri Lanka captain Chamari Athapaththu took three important dismissals in four bowls and Nilakshi de Silva ran out Nahida Akter to secure a dramatic success for the Lankan team.

The triumph – Sri Lanka's maiden of the tournament after three defeats and two no-results against the Australian team and New Zealand – pushes them level on four tournament points with India and the New Zealand side, who face each other on the coming Thursday.

The Bangladeshi team, in contrast, endured a fifth consecutive defeat since securing victory in their initial game against Pakistan and have been eliminated.

Even though the Bangladeshi side made the excellent commencement, with Marufa taking a wicket with the first delivery of the game to dismiss Vishmi Gunaratne, they were appropriately punished for a disappointing fielding effort.

They provided lifelines to Perera, who was dropped multiple times, and the Lankan captain.

Although Athapaththu could not capitalise, sent back leg before wicket for 46 just one delivery after being missed by Rabeya Khan, Perera made the opposition regret it.

She achieved a maiden international fifty, scoring 85 from 99 deliveries and building an crucial 74-run fifth-wicket collaboration with Nilakshi de Silva.

The Bangladeshi team, led by Shorna's 3-27, fought themselves back into the game, with De Silva's dismissal in the 34th over triggering a Sri Lanka downfall from 174-4 to 202 complete.

During their chase, Sri Lanka's starting bowlers Madara and Udeshika Prabodhani restricted the opposition to 23 with one wicket down in a lacklustre powerplay and they were afterwards reduced to 44 with three wickets lost.

Sharmin Akter and Nigar Sultana Joty rebuilt their batting effort, putting on 82 for the fourth wicket before Sharmin left the field injured for a determined 64 in the 36th bowling phase.

It was in favor of the chasing team heading into the last two innings segments, with just 12 runs necessary.

However, Sugandika Dasanayaka dismissed Ritu Moni and gave away only three runs before Athapaththu's chaos, with Rabeya, Nahida Akter, captain Joty and Marufa all dismissed as Sri Lanka grabbed the win at the death.

Finally, it was a match of nerve. The highly experienced Athapaththu, who ushered away a few of team-mates as she prepared to deliver the last over, maintained her nerve. Bangladesh failed to.

There will be plenty of inquiries about the team's batting effort. They could easily have been needing 270 to 280 with the Lankan team looking settled on 159 with four wickets down in the 30th over, but instead the required total was much lower.

Yet, Bangladesh showed little intent from the very beginning, scoring at below 2.5 scoring rate during the powerplay, experiencing a initial wicket loss, and finally making themselves excessive to achieve.

But no matter what difficulties there are with their batting approach, if they had taken their chances in the fielding department, that 203 total objective would have been significantly less.

It took them three tries to end the 72-run stand second-wicket collaboration, with keeper Joty being unable to hold a challenging opportunity as wicketkeeper to remove Perera on her score of 23 before the captain got a reprieve from a caught and bowled chance opportunity against Rabeya.

Perera was spilled further on 55 and her score of 63, the latter chance going directly to Rubya Haider Jhilik at cover position, before finally being given out lbw by Shorna Akter as she sought to up the ante with partners falling beside her.

Afterwards in the game, there was additionally a stumping chance missed and a failed run-out, although the second one was a somewhat regrettable, with Rubya Haider deputising with the keeping duties following an injury to the regular keeper.

Sadly for Bangladesh, such fielding issues are not at all a single occurrence. They've dropped 14 catches from a potential 27 chances at this competition and boast the lowest catching success rate (48.1%) of the participating teams.

They are a squad who are typically moving in the right direction – they are playing in merely their second 50-over World Cup in the end – but inadequate fielding performance is a prominent issue which needs improvement.