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

Women's Cricket World Cup, Mumbai

Sri Lanka 202 (48.4 overs): 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

Sri Lanka claimed four wickets in the decisive innings segment to seal a heart-stopping victory over Bangladesh and maintain their narrow hopes of qualifying for the World Cup semi-finals alive.

Chasing a below-par score of 203 on a good batting surface in the Mumbai stadium, the Bangladeshi team needed nine additional runs from the remaining six bowls.

However, Lankan skipper Chamari Athapaththu claimed three important dismissals in four bowls and Nilakshi de Silva dismissed via run-out Nahida to bring about a thrilling win for the Lankan team.

The triumph – Sri Lanka's first of the World Cup after three unsuccessful matches and two abandoned games against the Australian team and the Kiwi side – pushes them level on four points with India and the New Zealand side, who meet each other on Thursday.

Bangladesh, on the other hand, experienced a fifth consecutive defeat since winning their first match against the Pakistani team and have been knocked out.

While the Bangladeshi side got off to the excellent commencement, with Marufa taking a wicket with the opening bowl of the encounter to remove Vishmi Gunaratne, they were appropriately punished for a disappointing fielding performance.

They gifted reprieves to Perera, who was missed multiple times, and Athapaththu.

Even though Athapaththu could not take advantage, dismissed leg before wicket for 46 a single bowl after being put down by Rabeya Khan, Hasini Perera made the opposition suffer.

She scored a debut international fifty, making 85 from 99 deliveries and building an crucial 74-run fifth-wicket collaboration with Nilakshi de Silva.

Bangladesh, guided by Shorna's three wickets for 27 runs, pulled themselves back in the match, with De Silva's removal in the 34th over initiating a Lankan downfall from 174 for four to 202 complete.

During their chase, Sri Lanka's initial pace attack Madara and Prabodhani restricted the opposition to 23-1 in a disappointing powerplay and they were subsequently brought down to 44-3.

Sharmin Akter and Nigar Sultana Joty rebuilt their score, contributing 82 runs for the fourth wicket collaboration before Sharmin left the field injured for a resolute 64 in the 36th bowling phase.

It was advantage the chasing team heading into the last two bowling phases, with only 12 runs required.

Yet, Dasanayaka dismissed Ritu and conceded just three scoring runs before Athapaththu's chaos, with Rabeya, Nahida, skipper Joty and Marufa all dismissed as the Lankan team seized the victory at the death.

Finally, it was a match of nerve. The seasoned Lankan captain, who moved aside a few of teammates as she got ready to deliver the final over, kept hers. Bangladesh failed to.

There will be numerous questions about the team's batting performance. They possibly have been pursuing 270 or 280 with the Lankan team seeming at ease on 159-4 in the 30th bowling phase, but in contrast the required total was significantly less.

Yet, the batting side lacked aggression from ball one, making runs at below 2.5 runs per over during the initial phase, undergoing a early batting collapse, and ultimately forcing themselves overwhelming to achieve.

But whatever issues there are with their batting approach, if they had taken their catches in the fielding department, that 203-run target goal would have been considerably smaller.

It needed them three tries to terminate the 72-run partnership second-wicket collaboration, with wicketkeeper Nigar Sultana failing to hold a difficult chance as wicketkeeper to dismiss Hasini Perera on 23 runs before Athapaththu survived from a caught and bowled chance opportunity against Rabeya.

Perera was missed further on 55 runs and her score of 63, the latter chance traveling right to Rubya Haider Jhilik at cover field, before finally being trapped leg before wicket by Shorna Akter as she attempted to accelerate the scoring with batting partners falling beside her.

Subsequently in the game, there was also a failed stumping and a failed run-out, although the second one was a little unfortunate, with Rubya Haider standing in with the wicketkeeping gloves due to an fitness issue to Joty.

Regrettably for the team, such fielding issues are nowhere near a single occurrence. They've failed to catch 14 opportunities from a possible 27 at this World Cup and boast the lowest catching success rate (48.1 percent) of the eight teams.

They are a team who are overall progressing in the proper way – they are competing in only their second ODI World Cup in the end – but poor fielding standards is a glaring concern which needs improvement.