The Lankan team beats Bangladesh to maintain their campaign alive

Women's Cricket World Cup, Mumbai

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

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

Sri Lanka win by seven runs margin

The Lankan cricket team took four crucial dismissals in the final over to seal a thrilling win over their opponents and preserve their faint aspirations of making it for the tournament knockout stage intact.

Needing a modest score of 203 on a batting-friendly pitch in Navi Mumbai, the Bangladeshi team required nine more runs from the final six deliveries.

Yet, Sri Lanka captain Chamari Athapaththu took three important dismissals in four deliveries and de Silva dismissed via run-out Nahida to secure a exciting success for Sri Lanka.

The victory – Sri Lanka's maiden of the competition after three unsuccessful matches and two no-results against the Australian team and New Zealand – pushes them level on four match points with India and the New Zealand side, who meet each other on the coming Thursday.

Bangladesh, in contrast, suffered a fifth straight loss since securing victory in their first match against the Pakistani team and have been removed from contention.

While Bangladesh got off to the excellent commencement, with Marufa striking with the opening bowl of the encounter to remove Gunaratne, they were rightfully made to pay for a poor fielding display.

They provided lifelines to Hasini Perera, who was spilled three times, and the Lankan captain.

Even though the Sri Lankan skipper failed to capitalise, dismissed lbw for 46 a single bowl after being missed by Rabeya, Hasini Perera forced Bangladesh suffer.

She achieved a debut international half-century, making 85 from 99 deliveries and sharing an crucial 74-run stand fifth-wicket collaboration with De Silva.

Bangladesh, spearheaded by Shorna Akter's impressive bowling figures, fought themselves back to the match, with De Silva's wicket in the 34th innings segment initiating a Sri Lanka collapse from 174-4 to 202 complete.

While batting second, the Lankan team's opening bowlers Madara and Udeshika Prabodhani contained Bangladesh to 23 with one wicket down in a uninspiring initial phase and they were later diminished to 44-3.

Sharmin Akter and Joty reconstructed their batting effort, contributing 82 runs for the fourth wicket collaboration before the batter left the field injured for a stubborn 64 in the 36th over.

It was in favor of the chasing team entering the remaining two overs, with only 12 more runs needed.

Nevertheless, Dasanayaka dismissed Ritu Moni and allowed just three scoring runs before Athapaththu's chaos, with Rabeya, Nahida Akter, skipper Joty and Marufa Akter all dismissed as Sri Lanka snatched the triumph at the very end.

Finally, it was a contest of nerve. The highly experienced Athapaththu, who ushered away a handful of fellow players as she prepared to deliver the last over, held her nerve. The opposition did not.

There will be many questions about the team's batting performance. They possibly have been pursuing 270 to 280 with Sri Lanka appearing at ease on 159 for four in the 30th over, but instead the required total was much lower.

However, Bangladesh lacked aggression from the start, making runs at below 2.5 scoring rate during the initial phase, experiencing a early batting collapse, and finally making themselves too much to achieve.

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

It needed them three attempts to break the 72-run partnership second-wicket collaboration, with wicketkeeper Joty being unable to grab a challenging catch as wicketkeeper to send back Perera on 23 before Athapaththu was spared from a caught and bowled possibility against Rabeya Khan.

Perera was spilled once more on 55 runs and 63 runs, the final opportunity flying straight to Jhilik at cover position, before finally being given out leg before wicket by Shorna Akter as she sought to accelerate the scoring with partners falling around her.

Later in the innings, there was furthermore a failed stumping and a run-out opportunity lost, even though the second one was a slightly regrettable, with Rubya Haider standing in with the wicketkeeping gloves following an physical problem to Joty.

Unfortunately for the team, such fielding woes are nowhere near a single occurrence. They've dropped 14 chances from a possible 27 opportunities at this tournament and have the worst fielding effectiveness (less than 50%) of the competing sides.

They are a team who are overall moving in the correct path – they are participating in just their second one-day World Cup after all – but substandard fielding performance is a glaring problem which needs attention.