Sri Lanka beats the Bangladeshi side to maintain their tournament hopes breathing

ICC Women's World Cup, Mumbai

Sri Lanka 202 (48.4 overs): Hasini Perera 85 (99); Shorna 3-27

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

The Lankan side win by seven runs margin

Sri Lanka secured four crucial dismissals in the last over to complete a heart-stopping victory over Bangladesh and maintain their faint chances of making it for the tournament knockout stage intact.

Chasing a modest target of 203 on a batting-friendly pitch in the Mumbai stadium, Bangladesh needed nine more runs from the final six deliveries.

Nevertheless, Lankan skipper Chamari Athapaththu took three crucial wickets in four bowls and Nilakshi de Silva dismissed via run-out Nahida Akter to bring about a dramatic win for the Lankan team.

The triumph – Sri Lanka's maiden of the World Cup after three unsuccessful matches and two washed-out matches against Australia and the Kiwi side – pushes them level on four points with India and the New Zealand side, who meet each other on the coming Thursday.

The Bangladeshi team, on the other hand, endured a fifth consecutive defeat since winning their initial game against the Pakistani team and have been removed from contention.

Even though the Bangladeshi side got off to the excellent commencement, with Marufa Akter striking with the opening bowl of the encounter to send back Gunaratne, they were appropriately penalized for a disappointing fielding performance.

They provided second chances to Perera, who was dropped multiple times, and Athapaththu.

While the Sri Lankan skipper could not make it count, dismissed lbw for 46 a single bowl after being put down by Rabeya Khan, Hasini Perera made Bangladesh pay.

She scored a first international fifty, making 85 from 99 balls and building an significant 74-run partnership fifth-wicket collaboration with De Silva.

Bangladesh, spearheaded by Shorna Akter's impressive bowling figures, pulled themselves back into the contest, with Nilakshi's wicket in the 34th over initiating a Lankan collapse from 174 with four wickets down to 202 total.

During their chase, the Lankan team's starting bowlers Madara and Udeshika Prabodhani restricted the opposition to 23 with one wicket down in a disappointing initial phase and they were afterwards diminished to 44 with three wickets lost.

Sharmin and Joty restored their batting effort, putting on 82 runs for the fourth wicket collaboration before Sharmin withdrew due to injury for a stubborn 64 in the 36th over.

It was in favor of Bangladesh approaching the last two bowling phases, with just 12 more runs needed.

Yet, Sugandika Dasanayaka dismissed Ritu and gave away only three runs before Athapaththu's decisive intervention, with Rabeya Khan, Nahida Akter, captain Joty and Marufa Akter all dismissed as Sri Lanka snatched the victory at the death.

Ultimately, it was a contest of nerves. The seasoned Athapaththu, who ushered away a several of fellow players as she got ready to bowl the final over, held her composure. Bangladesh did not.

There will be plenty of inquiries about the team's batting display. They possibly have been pursuing 270 to 280 with Sri Lanka looking at ease on 159 with four wickets down in the 30th over, but instead the target was considerably smaller.

Nevertheless, Bangladesh lacked purpose from the start, scoring at below 2.5 runs per over during the powerplay, suffering a early batting collapse, and eventually forcing themselves too much to do.

But whatever difficulties there are with their batting lineup, if they had taken their catches in the fielding area, that 203 total goal would have been substantially smaller.

It required them three tries to end the 72-run second-wicket association, with keeper Joty failing to take a tough catch as wicketkeeper to send back Hasini Perera on her score of 23 before the captain was spared from a return catch possibility against Rabeya Khan.

Perera was dropped further on 55 runs and 63 runs, the latter chance going directly to Jhilik at cover field, before finally being trapped lbw by Shorna Akter as she tried to up the ante with teammates falling beside her.

Later in the batting effort, there was additionally a stumping chance missed and a failed run-out, while the run-out chance was a somewhat unfortunate, with Rubya Haider standing in with the wicketkeeping gloves following an fitness issue to the regular keeper.

Sadly for the team, such fielding problems are far from a one-off. They've missed 14 opportunities from a available 27 opportunities at this World Cup and display the worst catching success rate (48.1%) of the competing sides.

They are a squad who are generally progressing in the proper way – they are competing in just their second 50-over World Cup in the end – but substandard fielding standards is a glaring problem which needs attention.