Sri Lanka beats Bangladesh to maintain their campaign breathing

Women's Cricket World Cup, Mumbai

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

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

The Lankan side emerge victorious by seven runs

The Lankan cricket team took four crucial dismissals in the last over to achieve a nail-biting victory over their opponents and maintain their slim chances of making it for the tournament knockout stage alive.

Needing a below-par total of 203 on a good batting surface in the Mumbai stadium, the Bangladeshi team wanted nine runs from the last six balls.

Nevertheless, Sri Lanka captain Chamari Athapaththu took three crucial wickets in four balls and Nilakshi de Silva ran out Nahida Akter to achieve a thrilling victory for Sri Lanka.

The victory – the Lankan team's maiden of the World Cup after three unsuccessful matches and two washed-out matches against the Australian team and New Zealand – pushes them equal on four tournament points with India and New Zealand, who meet each other on the coming Thursday.

The Bangladeshi team, however, suffered a fifth successive defeat since securing victory in their tournament opener against the Pakistani team and have been eliminated.

Even though the Bangladeshi side made the excellent commencement, with Marufa striking with the initial ball of the encounter to send back Vishmi Gunaratne, they were deservedly punished for a subpar fielding performance.

They offered lifelines to Hasini Perera, who was missed on three occasions, and the Lankan captain.

Even though the Sri Lankan skipper was unable to capitalise, dismissed lbw for 46 just one delivery after being missed by Rabeya, Hasini Perera made the opposition regret it.

She achieved a debut international 50-run score, accumulating 85 from 99 bowls and sharing an important 74-run stand fifth-wicket collaboration with Nilakshi de Silva.

Bangladesh, guided by Shorna's 3-27, pulled themselves back into the match, with De Silva's wicket in the 34th innings segment causing a Sri Lanka downfall from 174 with four wickets down to 202 complete.

During their chase, the Lankan team's starting bowlers Malki Madara and Prabodhani limited the opposition to 23-1 in a uninspiring initial phase and they were afterwards brought down to 44 with three wickets lost.

Sharmin Akter and Nigar Sultana Joty restored their score, putting on 82 for the fourth wicket stand before Sharmin left the field injured for a determined 64 in the 36th innings segment.

It was in favor of Bangladesh approaching the remaining two innings segments, with only 12 runs needed.

Yet, Dasanayaka dismissed Ritu and conceded only three runs before Athapaththu's chaos, with Rabeya Khan, Nahida Akter, captain Joty and Marufa Akter all dismissed as Sri Lanka snatched the victory at the final moment.

Ultimately, it was a contest of nerve. The highly experienced Lankan captain, who ushered away a handful of fellow players as she got ready to bowl the decisive over, held hers. Bangladesh did not.

There will be plenty of inquiries about Bangladesh's batting performance. They could easily have been pursuing 270 or 280 with the Lankan team looking settled on 159-4 in the 30th innings segment, but instead the target was considerably smaller.

Yet, the batting side lacked purpose from the very beginning, accumulating runs at less than 2.5 runs each over during the initial phase, suffering a top-order collapse, and ultimately forcing themselves overwhelming to do.

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

It took them three efforts to terminate the 72-run partnership second-wicket collaboration, with wicketkeeper Joty failing to hold a challenging chance behind the stumps to send back Perera on 23 before the captain survived from a return catch opportunity against Rabeya.

The batter was dropped again on her score of 55 and 63 runs, the latter chance flying straight to Rubya Haider Jhilik at cover position, before ultimately being given out leg before wicket by Shorna Akter as she sought to accelerate the scoring with teammates getting out beside her.

Afterwards in the innings, there was additionally a failed stumping and a run-out opportunity lost, while the latter was a little regrettable, with Rubya Haider standing in with the keeping duties following an fitness issue to Joty.

Regrettably for the team, such fielding woes are not at all a single occurrence. They've failed to catch 14 catches from a possible 27 opportunities at this tournament and display the poorest catching success rate (less than 50%) of the competing sides.

They are a team who are typically progressing in the right direction – they are participating in merely their second ODI World Cup in the end – but substandard fielding performance is a obvious concern which needs focus.