The Lankan team defeats Bangladesh to preserve their World Cup tournament hopes alive

ICC Women's World Cup, Mumbai

Sri Lanka 202 (48.4 overs): 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 margin

The Lankan cricket team secured four crucial dismissals in the decisive innings segment to complete a heart-stopping win over their opponents and keep their narrow chances of qualifying for the World Cup semi-finals intact.

Pursuing a modest target of 203 on a favorable wicket in Navi Mumbai, Bangladesh needed nine runs from the final six deliveries.

Nevertheless, Sri Lanka captain Athapaththu claimed three important dismissals in four bowls and Nilakshi de Silva dismissed via run-out Nahida to secure a dramatic victory for Sri Lanka.

The victory – the Lankan team's initial of the tournament after three losses and two no-results against Australia and New Zealand – elevates them tied on four tournament points with India and New Zealand, who meet each other on Thursday.

Bangladesh, on the other hand, suffered a fifth consecutive loss since securing victory in their tournament opener against the Pakistani team and have been eliminated.

While Bangladesh made the ideal beginning, with Marufa Akter taking a wicket with the opening bowl of the match to dismiss Vishmi Gunaratne, they were deservedly made to pay for a disappointing fielding effort.

They offered lifelines to Hasini Perera, who was dropped three times, and Athapaththu.

While Athapaththu was unable to take advantage, dismissed leg before wicket for 46 one ball after being dropped by Rabeya Khan, Hasini Perera made the opposition suffer.

She registered a debut international fifty, accumulating 85 from 99 balls and building an important 74-run fifth-wicket with De Silva.

The Bangladeshi team, spearheaded by Shorna's impressive bowling figures, fought themselves back into the contest, with De Silva's dismissal in the 34th innings segment triggering a Sri Lanka batting collapse from 174-4 to 202 complete.

During their chase, Sri Lanka's opening bowlers Madara and Prabodhani restricted the opposition to 23 for one in a lacklustre opening overs and they were afterwards reduced to 44 for three.

Sharmin and Joty restored their batting effort, contributing 82 runs for the fourth wicket stand before Sharmin left the field injured for a resolute 64 in the 36th innings segment.

It was advantage the chasing team approaching the last two bowling phases, with merely 12 more runs required.

Yet, Dasanayaka sent back Ritu and gave away just three runs before the captain's chaos, with Rabeya Khan, Nahida, captain Joty and Marufa all sent back as the Lankan team snatched the win at the death.

In the end, it was a match of nerve. The very experienced Lankan captain, who ushered away a few of teammates as she set herself to bowl the final over, maintained hers. Bangladesh did not.

There will be plenty of questions about the team's batting display. They could easily have been pursuing around 270-280 with Sri Lanka looking comfortable on 159 with four wickets down in the 30th innings segment, but rather the target was significantly less.

However, Bangladesh showed little aggression from ball one, accumulating runs at below 2.5 runs per over during the opening overs, experiencing a early batting collapse, and eventually leaving themselves too much to do.

But no matter what issues there are with their batting approach, if they had taken their chances in the field, that 203-run target would have been significantly lower.

It needed them three efforts to break the 72-run partnership second-wicket, with keeper Joty being unable to take a challenging chance behind the stumps to send back Hasini Perera on 23 before the captain was spared from a caught and bowled possibility against Rabeya.

Perera was spilled further on 55 and 63 runs, the final opportunity flying directly to Rubya Haider Jhilik at cover field, before ultimately being trapped lbw by Shorna as she attempted to increase the tempo with teammates getting out beside her.

Afterwards in the batting effort, there was also a stumping chance missed and a failed run-out, although the run-out chance was a little regrettable, with Rubya Haider deputising with the gloves due to an injury to the regular keeper.

Unfortunately for Bangladesh, such fielding issues are not at all a isolated incident. They've failed to catch 14 opportunities from a available 27 opportunities at this World Cup and display the worst fielding effectiveness (48.1%) of the competing sides.

They are a squad who are generally heading in the proper way – they are playing in merely their second ODI World Cup ultimately – but substandard fielding standards is a obvious problem which needs attention.