Sri Lanka defeats Bangladesh to preserve their campaign breathing

Women's Cricket World Cup, Mumbai

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

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

Sri Lanka win by seven runs margin

The Lankan cricket team claimed four wickets in the last innings segment to seal a thrilling victory over Bangladesh and maintain their faint chances of qualifying for the tournament knockout stage intact.

Needing a modest score of 203 on a good batting surface in the Mumbai stadium, the Bangladeshi team needed nine more runs from the final six balls.

Nevertheless, Lankan skipper Athapaththu secured three crucial wickets in four deliveries and Nilakshi de Silva dismissed via run-out Nahida Akter to achieve a thrilling success for the Lankan team.

The victory – the Lankan team's maiden of the competition after three defeats and two abandoned games against Australia and New Zealand – elevates them equal on four match points with the Indian team and the New Zealand side, who face each other on Thursday.

Bangladesh, on the other hand, endured a fifth successive setback since winning their first match against the Pakistani team and have been eliminated.

Even though Bangladesh got off to the excellent commencement, with Marufa Akter striking with the first delivery of the game to dismiss Vishmi Gunaratne, they were deservedly penalized for a subpar fielding display.

They provided reprieves to Hasini Perera, who was missed multiple times, and the Lankan captain.

Even though Athapaththu failed to take advantage, removed lbw for 46 just one delivery after being dropped by Rabeya Khan, Hasini Perera made the opposition pay.

She achieved a debut international 50-run score, making 85 from 99 bowls and sharing an significant 74-run partnership fifth-wicket association with De Silva.

The Bangladeshi team, spearheaded by Shorna's three wickets for 27 runs, fought themselves back in the game, with De Silva's dismissal in the 34th over initiating a Lankan collapse from 174-4 to 202 total.

While batting second, the Lankan team's opening bowlers Malki Madara and Udeshika Prabodhani restricted the opposition to 23-1 in a lacklustre initial phase and they were afterwards diminished to 44 with three wickets lost.

Sharmin and Nigar Sultana Joty restored their batting effort, contributing 82 for the fourth wicket collaboration before the batter retired hurt for a stubborn 64 in the 36th innings segment.

It was advantage Bangladesh entering the remaining two bowling phases, with just 12 more runs necessary.

Yet, Sugandika Dasanayaka removed Ritu and conceded only three scoring runs before Athapaththu's decisive intervention, with Rabeya Khan, Nahida, skipper Joty and Marufa all dismissed as Sri Lanka seized the win at the very end.

Finally, it was a contest of nerves. The very experienced Lankan captain, who moved aside a handful of teammates as she got ready to bowl the decisive over, held hers. Bangladesh failed to.

There will be many doubts about Bangladesh's batting effort. They could easily have been needing 270 to 280 with the Lankan team looking settled on 159-4 in the 30th over, but instead the target was much lower.

Nevertheless, Bangladesh showed little purpose from the very beginning, scoring at under 2.5 scoring rate during the initial phase, suffering a early batting collapse, and finally leaving themselves too much to do.

But whatever issues there are with their batting approach, if they had seized their catches in the fielding department, that 203 total goal would have been significantly less.

It took them three tries to terminate the 72-run stand second-wicket, with wicketkeeper Joty being unable to hold a tough opportunity as wicketkeeper to send back Hasini Perera on 23 runs before the captain was spared from a return catch chance against Rabeya.

Perera was dropped once more on her score of 55 and 63 runs, the final opportunity flying directly to Jhilik at cover field, before eventually being given out leg before wicket by Shorna as she tried to increase the tempo with partners getting out near her.

Later in the batting effort, there was also a stumping chance missed and a missed run-out, although the second one was a somewhat unfortunate, with Rubya Haider standing in with the keeping duties due to an injury to the regular keeper.

Regrettably for Bangladesh, such fielding woes are far from a isolated incident. They've failed to catch 14 opportunities from a available 27 chances at this competition and display the worst catch efficiency (48.1%) of the eight teams.

They are a squad who are generally heading in the right direction – they are playing in merely their second ODI World Cup in the end – but inadequate fielding standards is a prominent problem which requires improvement.