Sri Lanka beats Bangladesh to keep their World Cup campaign alive

Women's Cricket World Cup, Mumbai

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

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

The Lankan side win by seven runs

The Lankan cricket team secured four crucial dismissals in the decisive over to seal a thrilling triumph over their opponents and maintain their faint aspirations of qualifying for the tournament knockout stage alive.

Chasing a below-par target of 203 on a batting-friendly pitch in Navi Mumbai, Bangladesh needed nine more runs from the remaining six bowls.

Nevertheless, Lankan skipper Athapaththu took three crucial wickets in four deliveries and de Silva dismissed via run-out Nahida Akter to bring about a thrilling victory for Sri Lanka.

The victory – the Lankan team's initial of the tournament after three losses and two washed-out matches against the Australian team and New Zealand – moves them tied on four points with India and the New Zealand side, who confront each other on the coming Thursday.

Bangladesh, on the other hand, experienced a fifth successive loss since winning their first match against the Pakistani team and have been removed from contention.

While Bangladesh made the ideal beginning, with Marufa striking with the first delivery of the match to dismiss Gunaratne, they were rightfully punished for a poor fielding performance.

They provided second chances to Perera, who was missed three times, and Athapaththu.

While Athapaththu could not capitalise, removed lbw for 46 just one delivery after being missed by Rabeya, Hasini Perera forced Bangladesh regret it.

She registered a maiden international half-century, accumulating 85 from 99 deliveries and sharing an important 74-run partnership fifth-wicket association with Nilakshi de Silva.

The Bangladeshi team, led by Shorna Akter's 3-27, dragged themselves back to the game, with Nilakshi's removal in the 34th bowling segment triggering a Sri Lanka downfall from 174-4 to 202 total.

During their chase, Sri Lanka's opening bowlers Madara and Udeshika Prabodhani restricted Bangladesh to 23-1 in a lacklustre opening overs and they were afterwards brought down to 44-3.

Sharmin Akter and Joty rebuilt their innings, adding 82 runs for the fourth wicket collaboration before Sharmin retired hurt for a stubborn 64 in the 36th over.

It was leaning toward the chasing team approaching the final two innings segments, with just 12 additional runs required.

However, Dasanayaka removed Ritu Moni and allowed only three scoring runs before the captain's chaos, with Rabeya, Nahida, skipper Joty and Marufa all removed as Sri Lanka seized the victory at the death.

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

There will be plenty of doubts about Bangladesh's batting display. They possibly have been chasing 270 or 280 with the Lankan team looking settled on 159 for four in the 30th over, but in contrast the target was considerably smaller.

However, the batting side displayed insufficient purpose from ball one, making runs at less than 2.5 runs each over during the opening overs, undergoing a early batting collapse, and finally making themselves too much to do.

But whatever issues there are with their batting approach, if they had accepted their catches in the fielding area, that 203-run target would have been considerably less.

It took them three attempts to break the 72-run partnership second-wicket, with keeper Nigar Sultana failing to grab a tough opportunity behind the stumps to dismiss Hasini Perera on her score of 23 before Athapaththu survived from a caught and bowled chance opportunity against Rabeya Khan.

The batter was spilled further on her score of 55 and 63 runs, the final opportunity traveling directly to Rubya Haider Jhilik at cover field, before ultimately being trapped lbw by Shorna Akter as she sought to increase the tempo with partners being dismissed near her.

Subsequently in the game, there was furthermore a failed stumping and a missed run-out, although the run-out chance was a slightly unlucky, with Jhilik deputising with the gloves after an injury to Joty.

Sadly for the team, such fielding issues are far from a one-off. They've failed to catch 14 opportunities from a potential 27 chances at this competition and have the poorest catching success rate (48.1%) of the participating teams.

They are a squad who are overall progressing in the correct path – they are participating in merely their second ODI World Cup after all – but inadequate fielding standards is a glaring problem which demands attention.