Sri Lanka beats the Bangladeshi side to maintain their tournament hopes alive

Women's Cricket World Cup, Navi Mumbai

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

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

The Lankan side emerge victorious by seven runs

Sri Lanka took four wickets in the final innings segment to seal a heart-stopping win over Bangladesh and preserve their faint hopes of qualifying for the tournament knockout stage alive.

Needing a modest total of 203 on a favorable wicket in the Mumbai stadium, Bangladesh needed nine runs from the remaining six deliveries.

However, Sri Lanka captain Athapaththu secured three important dismissals in four balls and Nilakshi de Silva ran out Nahida to secure a exciting success for the Lankan team.

The victory – the Lankan team's maiden of the tournament after three defeats and two no-results against the Australian team and the Kiwi side – pushes them tied on four match points with India and the New Zealand side, who meet each other on Thursday.

The Bangladeshi team, however, suffered a fifth successive setback since winning their tournament opener against Pakistan and have been knocked out.

Even though the Bangladeshi side made the ideal beginning, with Marufa Akter striking with the opening bowl of the encounter to remove Gunaratne, they were appropriately punished for a disappointing fielding effort.

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

Even though the Sri Lankan skipper failed to take advantage, sent back lbw for 46 just one delivery after being missed by Rabeya Khan, Perera forced Bangladesh regret it.

She registered a maiden international 50-run score, scoring 85 from 99 balls and building an significant 74-run fifth-wicket association with De Silva.

The Bangladeshi team, guided by Shorna Akter's 3-27, fought themselves back into the match, with Nilakshi's dismissal in the 34th bowling segment initiating a Sri Lanka downfall from 174-4 to 202 total.

While batting second, the Lankan team's opening bowlers Malki Madara and Udeshika Prabodhani contained Bangladesh to 23 for one in a disappointing opening overs and they were afterwards diminished to 44 for three.

Sharmin Akter and Nigar Sultana Joty rebuilt their score, adding 82 runs for the fourth wicket collaboration before Sharmin withdrew due to injury for a stubborn 64 in the 36th innings segment.

It was advantage Bangladesh approaching the remaining two overs, with only 12 runs required.

Nevertheless, Dasanayaka dismissed Ritu and conceded just three runs before Athapaththu's dramatic spell, with Rabeya, Nahida Akter, captain Joty and Marufa all removed as Sri Lanka grabbed the win at the final moment.

Finally, it was a game of nerve. The highly experienced Lankan captain, who directed away a few of fellow players as she set herself to bowl the final over, maintained her composure. Bangladesh failed to.

There will be many doubts about Bangladesh's batting effort. They could easily have been pursuing 270 to 280 with Sri Lanka looking comfortable on 159-4 in the 30th bowling phase, but in contrast the target was much lower.

Yet, the batting side showed little intent from the start, scoring at below 2.5 runs per over during the powerplay, undergoing a top-order collapse, and finally leaving themselves excessive to achieve.

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

It required them three tries to break the 72-run stand second-wicket, with keeper Joty failing to grab a challenging catch behind the stumps to dismiss Perera on her score of 23 before Athapaththu got a reprieve from a return catch opportunity against Rabeya Khan.

The batter was missed once more on 55 and 63, the final opportunity flying directly to Jhilik at cover, before eventually being dismissed lbw by Shorna as she tried to increase the tempo with batting partners falling beside her.

Afterwards in the game, there was additionally a failed stumping and a missed run-out, although the second one was a somewhat unfortunate, with Rubya Haider substituting with the gloves due to an physical problem to Joty.

Sadly for Bangladesh, such fielding woes are nowhere near a isolated incident. They've missed 14 catches from a possible 27 at this competition and have the lowest fielding effectiveness (48.1%) of the participating teams.

They are a team who are overall moving in the right direction – they are competing in only their second ODI World Cup ultimately – but inadequate fielding is a obvious issue which requires improvement.