Sri Lanka beats the Bangladeshi side to preserve their World Cup tournament hopes ongoing

ICC Women's World Cup, Mumbai

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

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

Sri Lanka emerge victorious by seven runs margin

Sri Lanka claimed four wickets in the final innings segment to seal a heart-stopping triumph over Bangladesh and preserve their faint hopes of qualifying for the World Cup semi-finals alive.

Pursuing a attainable score of 203 on a favorable wicket in Navi Mumbai, the Bangladeshi team wanted nine additional runs from the last six bowls.

Yet, Sri Lanka captain Athapaththu claimed three crucial wickets in four deliveries and Nilakshi de Silva ran out Nahida to secure a exciting win for the Lankan team.

The triumph – the Lankan team's maiden of the World Cup after three unsuccessful matches and two no-results against Australia and New Zealand – moves them level on four points with India and New Zealand, who meet each other on Thursday.

The Bangladeshi team, on the other hand, suffered a fifth successive setback since securing victory in their initial game against the Pakistani team and have been removed from contention.

While the Bangladeshi side got off to the perfect start, with Marufa striking with the initial ball of the encounter to dismiss Gunaratne, they were appropriately made to pay for a disappointing fielding performance.

They offered second chances to Hasini Perera, who was dropped three times, and the Lankan captain.

Although Athapaththu failed to take advantage, dismissed leg before wicket for 46 just one delivery after being missed by Rabeya, Perera forced Bangladesh pay.

She achieved a debut international fifty, scoring 85 from 99 bowls and sharing an crucial 74-run partnership fifth-wicket association with De Silva.

Bangladesh, spearheaded by Shorna Akter's impressive bowling figures, pulled themselves back into the game, with Nilakshi's removal in the 34th bowling segment initiating a Sri Lanka collapse from 174-4 to 202 complete.

During their chase, the Lankan team's initial pace attack Madara and Udeshika Prabodhani limited Bangladesh to 23 with one wicket down in a disappointing powerplay and they were afterwards reduced to 44 for three.

Sharmin Akter and Nigar Sultana Joty rebuilt their innings, putting on 82 for the fourth wicket before Sharmin retired hurt for a determined 64 in the 36th bowling phase.

It was advantage the chasing team heading into the last two overs, with merely 12 runs necessary.

However, Dasanayaka sent back Ritu and gave away merely three scoring runs before Athapaththu's dramatic spell, with Rabeya, Nahida Akter, captain Joty and Marufa all sent back as the Lankan team snatched the triumph at the death.

In the end, it was a contest of nerve. The seasoned Athapaththu, who moved aside a several of fellow players as she prepared to deliver the final over, held hers. Bangladesh did not.

There will be numerous inquiries about the team's batting performance. They possibly have been chasing 270 to 280 with Sri Lanka looking comfortable on 159-4 in the 30th bowling phase, but in contrast the target was much lower.

However, Bangladesh showed little purpose from the start, scoring at below 2.5 runs each over during the powerplay, experiencing a top-order collapse, and finally making themselves excessive to accomplish.

But whatever difficulties there are with their batting, if they had taken their catches in the field, that 203-run goal would have been significantly lower.

It needed them three efforts to terminate the 72-run partnership second-wicket association, with wicketkeeper Joty failing to hold a difficult opportunity as wicketkeeper to dismiss Perera on her score of 23 before Athapaththu survived from a caught and bowled possibility against Rabeya Khan.

Perera was spilled again on 55 runs and 63, the latter chance traveling directly to Rubya Haider Jhilik at cover field, before ultimately being given out leg before wicket by Shorna Akter as she attempted to up the ante with partners being dismissed around her.

Later in the batting effort, there was also a stumping chance missed and a failed run-out, even though the second one was a slightly unfortunate, with Jhilik standing in with the gloves due to an physical problem to the regular keeper.

Regrettably for Bangladesh, such fielding problems are far from a isolated incident. They've dropped 14 catches from a possible 27 chances at this tournament and boast the worst catching success rate (48.1 percent) of the eight teams.

They are a side who are overall moving in the correct path – they are participating in only their second ODI World Cup after all – but poor fielding is a glaring problem which requires improvement.