Sri Lanka defeats Bangladesh to keep their tournament hopes alive

Women's Cricket World Cup, Mumbai

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

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

Sri Lanka emerge victorious by seven runs

The Lankan cricket team took four wickets in the final innings segment to achieve a heart-stopping victory over Bangladesh and maintain their slim hopes of making it for the tournament knockout stage intact.

Chasing a below-par score of 203 on a good batting surface in Navi Mumbai, Bangladesh needed nine more runs from the last six deliveries.

However, Lankan skipper Athapaththu took three wickets in four balls and de Silva dismissed via run-out Nahida Akter to secure a exciting win for the Lankan team.

The victory – Sri Lanka's maiden of the tournament after three defeats and two washed-out matches against the Australian team and the Kiwi side – moves them level on four tournament points with India and New Zealand, who meet each other on Thursday.

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

While the Bangladeshi side made the ideal beginning, with Marufa striking with the first delivery of the encounter to remove Vishmi Gunaratne, they were deservedly penalized for a poor fielding effort.

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

While Athapaththu could not capitalise, sent back lbw for 46 one ball after being missed by Rabeya Khan, Hasini Perera made the opposition suffer.

She registered a first international half-century, accumulating 85 from 99 deliveries and contributing to an important 74-run fifth-wicket with De Silva.

Bangladesh, guided by Shorna Akter's three wickets for 27 runs, dragged themselves back in the game, with De Silva's wicket in the 34th innings segment triggering a Sri Lanka downfall from 174 with four wickets down to 202 all out.

During their chase, the Lankan team's initial pace attack Madara and Prabodhani limited Bangladesh to 23 for one in a lacklustre opening overs and they were later diminished to 44-3.

Sharmin Akter and Nigar Sultana Joty reconstructed their batting effort, adding 82 for the fourth wicket collaboration before Sharmin left the field injured for a determined 64 in the 36th bowling phase.

It was leaning toward Bangladesh approaching the remaining two bowling phases, with just 12 runs required.

Yet, Sugandika Dasanayaka sent back Ritu Moni and conceded only three scoring runs before Athapaththu's chaos, with Rabeya, Nahida Akter, skipper Joty and Marufa all dismissed as Sri Lanka snatched the win at the death.

Ultimately, it was a contest of nerves. The highly experienced Athapaththu, who moved aside a handful of fellow players as she prepared to deliver the final over, kept her composure. Bangladesh failed to.

There will be plenty of doubts about Bangladesh's batting performance. They possibly have been chasing 270 or 280 with the Lankan team looking at ease on 159-4 in the 30th over, but instead the chase was much lower.

Nevertheless, Bangladesh displayed insufficient intent from the very beginning, making runs at less than 2.5 runs each over during the opening overs, undergoing a top-order collapse, and finally forcing themselves excessive to achieve.

But no matter what problems there are with their batting lineup, if they had taken their catches in the fielding department, that 203-run target would have been considerably lower.

It required them three attempts to terminate the 72-run partnership second-wicket collaboration, with wicketkeeper Nigar Sultana not managing to hold a challenging opportunity as wicketkeeper to dismiss Perera on 23 before the captain got a reprieve from a return catch chance against Rabeya.

Perera was dropped once more on 55 and 63, the final opportunity going directly to Jhilik at cover, before finally being given out leg before wicket by Shorna as she sought to accelerate the scoring with batting partners being dismissed beside her.

Afterwards in the game, there was also a failed stumping and a run-out opportunity lost, although the run-out chance was a somewhat unlucky, with Jhilik deputising with the wicketkeeping gloves following an injury to the regular keeper.

Sadly for Bangladesh, such fielding woes are not at all a isolated incident. They've failed to catch 14 catches from a potential 27 opportunities at this competition and boast the worst catch efficiency (48.1%) of the eight teams.

They are a team who are typically heading in the right direction – they are competing in merely their second one-day World Cup in the end – but substandard fielding is a obvious concern which requires focus.