Sri Lanka defeats the Bangladeshi side to keep their World Cup campaign alive

ICC Women's World Cup, Navi Mumbai

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

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

The Lankan side emerge victorious by seven runs margin

Sri Lanka took four crucial dismissals in the decisive over to achieve a nail-biting victory over Bangladesh and preserve their narrow aspirations of qualifying for the tournament knockout stage intact.

Chasing a modest target of 203 on a good batting surface in the Mumbai stadium, the Bangladeshi team required nine runs from the final six deliveries.

Yet, Sri Lanka captain Athapaththu secured three important dismissals in four deliveries and de Silva ran out Nahida to secure a dramatic success for Sri Lanka.

The win – Sri Lanka's first of the competition after three losses and two abandoned games against Australia and the Kiwi side – elevates them level on four points with the Indian team and the New Zealand side, who meet each other on Thursday.

The Bangladeshi team, in contrast, endured a fifth straight setback since winning their first match against the Pakistani team and have been removed from contention.

Even though the Bangladeshi side got off to the ideal beginning, with Marufa Akter striking with the initial ball of the game to send back Vishmi Gunaratne, they were appropriately made to pay for a subpar fielding display.

They gifted reprieves to Perera, who was missed multiple times, and Athapaththu.

Even though Athapaththu failed to make it count, removed lbw for 46 a single bowl after being put down by Rabeya, Hasini Perera made the opposition suffer.

She scored a debut international 50-run score, making 85 from 99 bowls and contributing to an significant 74-run stand fifth-wicket collaboration with Nilakshi de Silva.

The Bangladeshi team, guided by Shorna Akter's three wickets for 27 runs, fought themselves back to the game, with Nilakshi's removal in the 34th bowling segment initiating a Lankan batting collapse from 174-4 to 202 complete.

In reply, Sri Lanka's initial pace attack Malki Madara and Udeshika Prabodhani limited the opposition to 23 for one in a disappointing powerplay and they were later diminished to 44 for three.

Sharmin and Nigar Sultana Joty reconstructed their innings, contributing 82 for the fourth wicket before the batter retired hurt for a resolute 64 in the 36th innings segment.

It was leaning toward Bangladesh entering the final two innings segments, with just 12 additional runs needed.

However, Sugandika Dasanayaka removed Ritu Moni and gave away merely three scoring runs before Athapaththu's chaos, with Rabeya Khan, Nahida Akter, captain Joty and Marufa Akter all sent back as the Lankan team seized the win at the very end.

Finally, it was a game of composure. The very experienced Lankan captain, who moved aside a handful of teammates as she prepared to deliver the decisive over, kept her composure. Bangladesh did not.

There will be many questions about Bangladesh's batting performance. They could easily have been needing 270 to 280 with the Lankan team looking at ease on 159-4 in the 30th bowling phase, but rather the required total was much lower.

However, Bangladesh showed little aggression from ball one, accumulating runs at under 2.5 runs each over during the powerplay, suffering a initial wicket loss, and eventually forcing themselves overwhelming to achieve.

But no matter what difficulties there are with their batting, if they had taken their chances in the fielding department, that 203-run target goal would have been substantially lower.

It required them three tries to break the 72-run partnership second-wicket association, with keeper Joty failing to take a tough chance as wicketkeeper to remove Hasini Perera on her score of 23 before the captain survived from a caught and bowled chance opportunity against Rabeya Khan.

The batter was dropped further on her score of 55 and 63 runs, the latter chance flying directly to Jhilik at cover position, before eventually being trapped leg before wicket by Shorna Akter as she attempted to accelerate the scoring with teammates falling around her.

Afterwards in the innings, there was furthermore a stumping chance missed and a missed run-out, even though the latter was a little unlucky, with Jhilik deputising with the wicketkeeping gloves following an injury to Joty.

Unfortunately for the team, such fielding issues are nowhere near a isolated incident. They've missed 14 catches from a available 27 chances at this tournament and boast the poorest catch efficiency (48.1%) of the participating teams.

They are a team who are typically progressing in the right direction – they are competing in merely their second 50-over World Cup ultimately – but poor fielding is a obvious problem which needs improvement.