Sri Lanka beats Bangladesh to preserve their World Cup campaign alive

Women's Cricket World Cup, Mumbai

Sri Lanka 202 (48.4 overs): Hasini Perera 85 (99); Shorna Akter 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 wickets in the final innings segment to seal a nail-biting win over Bangladesh and keep their faint chances of making it for the World Cup semi-finals intact.

Needing a attainable target of 203 on a good batting surface in Navi Mumbai, Bangladesh required nine additional runs from the remaining six bowls.

Yet, Sri Lanka captain Athapaththu took three wickets in four balls and de Silva dismissed via run-out Nahida Akter to secure a dramatic success for the Lankan team.

The win – the Lankan team's first of the competition after three losses and two washed-out matches against Australia and the Kiwi side – moves them tied on four match points with India and the New Zealand side, who meet each other on the coming Thursday.

The Bangladeshi team, on the other hand, suffered a fifth straight defeat since winning their initial game against Pakistan and have been knocked out.

Although the Bangladeshi side got off to the excellent commencement, with Marufa striking with the first delivery of the match to send back Gunaratne, they were deservedly punished for a subpar fielding display.

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

Even though the Sri Lankan skipper failed to take advantage, dismissed leg before wicket for 46 just one delivery after being dropped by Rabeya Khan, Hasini Perera made the opposition pay.

She registered a first international 50-run score, making 85 from 99 balls and building an important 74-run partnership fifth-wicket with Nilakshi de Silva.

Bangladesh, spearheaded by Shorna's impressive bowling figures, fought themselves back into the match, with De Silva's removal in the 34th over triggering a Sri Lanka collapse from 174 with four wickets down to 202 all out.

While batting second, Sri Lanka's starting bowlers Madara and Prabodhani limited the opposition to 23 with one wicket down in a disappointing opening overs and they were subsequently brought down to 44 for three.

Sharmin and Nigar Sultana Joty rebuilt their batting effort, contributing an 82-run partnership for the fourth wicket stand before the batter withdrew due to injury for a stubborn 64 in the 36th over.

It was leaning toward the chasing team approaching the last two overs, with merely 12 more runs necessary.

Yet, Dasanayaka dismissed Ritu and allowed just three runs before Athapaththu's decisive intervention, with Rabeya, Nahida Akter, captain Joty and Marufa Akter all dismissed as Sri Lanka seized the win at the death.

Ultimately, it was a match of nerves. The seasoned Lankan captain, who directed away a few of teammates as she prepared to bowl the last over, kept hers. The opposition did not.

There will be plenty of inquiries about Bangladesh's batting effort. They could easily have been pursuing 270 or 280 with the Lankan team looking comfortable on 159 with four wickets down in the 30th bowling phase, but instead the chase was considerably smaller.

Nevertheless, the batting side showed little purpose from ball one, accumulating runs at under 2.5 runs per over during the opening overs, suffering a initial wicket loss, and ultimately forcing themselves overwhelming to accomplish.

But no matter what difficulties there are with their batting approach, if they had accepted their catches in the field, that 203-run target would have been substantially less.

It needed them three efforts to terminate the 72-run partnership second-wicket, with keeper Nigar Sultana not managing to grab a challenging chance behind the stumps to send back Hasini Perera on 23 before Athapaththu survived from a return catch possibility against Rabeya Khan.

Perera was dropped further on her score of 55 and 63, the final opportunity going straight to Rubya Haider Jhilik at cover position, before finally being given out leg before wicket by Shorna Akter as she sought to accelerate the scoring with partners getting out near her.

Subsequently in the game, there was additionally a missed stumping and a run-out opportunity lost, although the second one was a little regrettable, with Rubya Haider substituting with the keeping duties following an fitness issue to the regular keeper.

Unfortunately for the team, such fielding woes are nowhere near a one-off. They've failed to catch 14 catches from a available 27 opportunities at this World Cup and boast the lowest catch efficiency (48.1%) of the participating teams.

They are a team who are overall heading in the proper way – they are competing in just their second one-day World Cup ultimately – but poor fielding standards is a prominent problem which requires focus.