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

ICC Women's World Cup, Mumbai

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

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

Sri Lanka win by seven runs margin

Sri Lanka claimed four wickets in the final over to seal a heart-stopping win over Bangladesh and preserve their narrow hopes of qualifying for the World Cup semi-finals alive.

Needing a modest score of 203 on a favorable wicket in Navi Mumbai, the Bangladeshi team wanted nine more runs from the remaining six deliveries.

However, Sri Lanka captain Chamari Athapaththu claimed three crucial wickets in four deliveries and de Silva ran out Nahida to secure a exciting success for Sri Lanka.

The triumph – the Lankan team's first 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 the Indian team and New Zealand, who face each other on Thursday.

Bangladesh, in contrast, suffered a fifth successive loss since securing victory in their tournament opener against Pakistan and have been knocked out.

Although Bangladesh made the excellent commencement, with Marufa taking a wicket with the opening bowl of the encounter to send back Vishmi Gunaratne, they were rightfully made to pay for a disappointing fielding effort.

They offered second chances to Hasini Perera, who was dropped three times, and the Lankan captain.

Although Athapaththu could not take advantage, dismissed leg before wicket for 46 one ball after being put down by Rabeya Khan, Perera made the opposition regret it.

She achieved a maiden international fifty, making 85 from 99 balls and sharing an important 74-run stand fifth-wicket with De Silva.

The Bangladeshi team, guided by Shorna's 3-27, fought themselves back in the contest, with De Silva's dismissal in the 34th innings segment causing a Lankan collapse from 174-4 to 202 complete.

In reply, Sri Lanka's initial pace attack Madara and Prabodhani restricted Bangladesh to 23 for one in a lacklustre powerplay and they were subsequently brought down to 44 with three wickets lost.

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

It was in favor of Bangladesh approaching the last two overs, with merely 12 more runs necessary.

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

In the end, it was a contest of nerve. The very experienced Lankan captain, who moved aside a handful of teammates as she set herself to deliver the final over, kept hers. Bangladesh failed to.

There will be numerous inquiries about Bangladesh's batting effort. They could easily have been chasing 270 or 280 with Sri Lanka seeming settled on 159 for four in the 30th over, but rather the target was considerably smaller.

Nevertheless, the batting side showed little intent from ball one, making runs at less than 2.5 runs per over during the powerplay, undergoing a initial wicket loss, and finally forcing themselves overwhelming to accomplish.

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

It took them three attempts to break the 72-run second-wicket, with wicketkeeper Joty not managing to hold a challenging chance while keeping to send back Perera on 23 runs before the captain survived from a return catch chance against Rabeya.

Perera was spilled again on 55 runs and 63, the final opportunity going directly to Jhilik at cover, before ultimately being dismissed leg before wicket by Shorna as she attempted to increase the tempo with teammates getting out around her.

Subsequently in the game, there was furthermore a missed stumping and a run-out opportunity lost, although the latter was a slightly regrettable, with Jhilik deputising with the keeping duties after an physical problem to Joty.

Sadly for Bangladesh, such fielding woes are far from a one-off. They've dropped 14 opportunities from a available 27 chances at this World Cup and display the lowest catching success rate (48.1%) of the participating teams.

They are a side who are generally moving in the right direction – they are participating in just their second one-day World Cup ultimately – but poor fielding performance is a glaring problem which demands improvement.