Sri Lanka beats the Bangladeshi side to maintain their World Cup campaign alive

ICC Women's World Cup, Navi Mumbai

Sri Lanka 202 (48.4 overs): Perera 85 (99); Shorna Akter 3-27

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

The Lankan side emerge victorious by seven runs

The Lankan cricket team took four wickets in the final over to achieve a nail-biting triumph over Bangladesh and preserve their narrow chances of making it for the tournament knockout stage ongoing.

Pursuing a below-par target of 203 on a good batting surface in Navi Mumbai, Bangladesh required nine more runs from the last six balls.

Yet, Sri Lanka captain Chamari Athapaththu took three important dismissals in four bowls and Nilakshi de Silva dismissed via run-out Nahida Akter to achieve a dramatic victory for the Lankan team.

The win – Sri Lanka's maiden of the competition after three unsuccessful matches and two washed-out matches against Australia and the Kiwi side – moves them equal on four tournament points with India and New Zealand, who confront each other on Thursday.

Bangladesh, in contrast, endured a fifth successive setback since winning their initial game against Pakistan and have been knocked out.

Even though Bangladesh got off to the excellent commencement, with Marufa Akter taking a wicket with the opening bowl of the match to send back Vishmi Gunaratne, they were deservedly made to pay for a disappointing fielding effort.

They gifted lifelines to Perera, who was missed on three occasions, and Athapaththu.

While Athapaththu was unable to take advantage, removed lbw for 46 just one delivery after being dropped by Rabeya Khan, Hasini Perera made Bangladesh pay.

She registered a debut international fifty, accumulating 85 from 99 deliveries and sharing an important 74-run partnership fifth-wicket collaboration with Nilakshi de Silva.

Bangladesh, guided by Shorna's 3-27, pulled themselves back into the match, with Nilakshi's dismissal in the 34th over triggering a Sri Lanka downfall from 174 for four to 202 all out.

In reply, Sri Lanka's starting bowlers Malki Madara and Prabodhani contained Bangladesh to 23 with one wicket down in a disappointing powerplay and they were later brought down to 44 for three.

Sharmin and Nigar Sultana Joty rebuilt their score, contributing an 82-run partnership for the fourth wicket before Sharmin left the field injured for a stubborn 64 in the 36th bowling phase.

It was in favor of Bangladesh approaching the final two innings segments, with merely 12 more runs necessary.

Nevertheless, Dasanayaka removed Ritu and gave away just three runs before Athapaththu's dramatic spell, with Rabeya Khan, Nahida Akter, captain Joty and Marufa all removed as Sri Lanka snatched the win at the death.

In the end, it was a match of nerve. The very experienced Athapaththu, who ushered away a several of fellow players as she got ready to bowl the final over, maintained hers. Bangladesh could not.

There will be plenty of inquiries about the team's batting performance. They possibly have been needing around 270-280 with the Lankan team looking settled on 159 with four wickets down in the 30th innings segment, but rather the required total was much lower.

However, Bangladesh displayed insufficient intent from the very beginning, accumulating runs at below 2.5 scoring rate during the powerplay, undergoing a early batting collapse, and ultimately making themselves overwhelming to accomplish.

But whatever difficulties there are with their batting, if they had taken their chances in the fielding area, that 203-run goal would have been considerably lower.

It took them three tries to break the 72-run second-wicket association, with keeper Joty failing to take a difficult catch as wicketkeeper to send back Hasini Perera on 23 before the captain survived from a caught and bowled chance chance against Rabeya Khan.

The batter was spilled again on 55 and 63 runs, the last attempt flying straight to Rubya Haider Jhilik at cover position, before finally being trapped lbw by Shorna Akter as she sought to increase the tempo with partners falling beside her.

Later in the batting effort, there was furthermore a failed stumping and a failed run-out, although the latter was a somewhat unfortunate, with Jhilik deputising with the wicketkeeping gloves after an physical problem to Joty.

Unfortunately for the team, such fielding issues are far from a isolated incident. They've failed to catch 14 opportunities from a available 27 at this competition and boast the poorest catching success rate (48.1%) of the participating teams.

They are a team who are generally progressing in the right direction – they are participating in only their second 50-over World Cup after all – but substandard fielding performance is a obvious problem which demands attention.