Sri Lanka beats the Bangladeshi side to preserve their World Cup tournament hopes ongoing

ICC Women's World Cup, Navi Mumbai

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

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

The Lankan side emerge victorious by seven runs

The Lankan cricket team secured four crucial dismissals in the final innings segment to achieve a thrilling win over their opponents and maintain their faint aspirations of qualifying for the World Cup semi-finals intact.

Pursuing a modest total of 203 on a favorable wicket in Navi Mumbai, the Bangladeshi team needed nine additional runs from the final six balls.

However, Lankan skipper Chamari Athapaththu secured three important dismissals in four deliveries and Nilakshi de Silva ran out Nahida Akter to secure a exciting win for Sri Lanka.

The triumph – Sri Lanka's first of the competition after three defeats and two no-results against the Australian team and the Kiwi side – elevates them tied on four points with the Indian team and the New Zealand side, who face each other on the coming Thursday.

The Bangladeshi team, however, experienced a fifth successive setback since winning their first match against the Pakistani team and have been eliminated.

Even though the Bangladeshi side got off to the excellent commencement, with Marufa striking with the initial ball of the encounter to dismiss Gunaratne, they were deservedly made to pay for a poor fielding performance.

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

Even though the Sri Lankan skipper failed to capitalise, sent back lbw for 46 one ball after being missed by Rabeya Khan, Perera forced Bangladesh pay.

She scored a maiden international 50-run score, accumulating 85 from 99 balls and contributing to an crucial 74-run fifth-wicket association with Nilakshi de Silva.

Bangladesh, spearheaded by Shorna's three wickets for 27 runs, pulled themselves back into the contest, with De Silva's removal in the 34th innings segment triggering a Lankan downfall from 174 with four wickets down to 202 complete.

While batting second, the Lankan team's initial pace attack Madara and Udeshika Prabodhani limited the opposition to 23-1 in a disappointing opening overs and they were subsequently diminished to 44 with three wickets lost.

Sharmin Akter and Joty rebuilt their score, contributing 82 for the fourth wicket collaboration before Sharmin withdrew due to injury for a determined 64 in the 36th over.

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

However, Dasanayaka sent back Ritu and gave away just three runs before Athapaththu's decisive intervention, with Rabeya Khan, Nahida, captain Joty and Marufa Akter all removed as Sri Lanka grabbed the triumph at the final moment.

In the end, it was a match of nerves. The seasoned Athapaththu, who ushered away a few of team-mates as she got ready to deliver the decisive over, held hers. Bangladesh did not.

There will be plenty of doubts about the team's batting performance. They might well have been chasing 270 to 280 with the Lankan team looking settled on 159 for four in the 30th bowling phase, but rather the chase was significantly less.

However, the batting side lacked purpose from the start, scoring at under 2.5 runs per over during the initial phase, undergoing a initial wicket loss, and eventually making themselves excessive to do.

But whatever issues there are with their batting lineup, if they had seized their chances in the fielding area, that 203-run target goal would have been substantially smaller.

It needed them three tries to break the 72-run stand second-wicket, with keeper Nigar Sultana being unable to hold a difficult catch while keeping to remove Hasini Perera on her score of 23 before Athapaththu survived from a caught and bowled chance chance against Rabeya.

Perera was dropped further on her score of 55 and 63, the final opportunity going straight to Jhilik at cover, before finally being trapped lbw by Shorna as she tried to increase the tempo with batting partners being dismissed around her.

Afterwards in the batting effort, there was also a stumping chance missed and a run-out opportunity lost, although the latter was a slightly regrettable, with Rubya Haider standing in with the wicketkeeping gloves after an physical problem to Joty.

Unfortunately for Bangladesh, such fielding woes are not at all a single occurrence. They've missed 14 opportunities from a potential 27 chances at this tournament and display the poorest catching success rate (48.1%) of the eight teams.

They are a team who are generally heading in the proper way – they are competing in only their second one-day World Cup after all – but substandard fielding is a prominent issue which requires improvement.