Sri Lanka beats the Bangladeshi side to preserve their World Cup campaign alive

Women's Cricket World Cup, Mumbai

The Lankan team 202 (48.4 overs): Hasini Perera 85 (99); Shorna Akter 3-27

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

Sri Lanka win by seven runs

The Lankan cricket team took four crucial dismissals in the last over to seal a thrilling victory over their opponents and maintain their narrow aspirations of making it for the World Cup semi-finals ongoing.

Chasing a below-par score of 203 on a favorable wicket in the Mumbai stadium, Bangladesh needed nine runs from the final six balls.

Yet, Sri Lanka captain Athapaththu claimed three wickets in four bowls and Nilakshi de Silva dismissed via run-out Nahida Akter to achieve a dramatic victory for the Lankan team.

The victory – Sri Lanka's maiden of the competition after three losses and two abandoned games against the Australian team and the Kiwi side – moves them level on four tournament points with the Indian team and New Zealand, who face each other on Thursday.

The Bangladeshi team, in contrast, suffered a fifth consecutive setback since securing victory in their initial game against Pakistan 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 match to remove Vishmi Gunaratne, they were appropriately punished for a subpar fielding effort.

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

Although the Sri Lankan skipper was unable to capitalise, sent back leg before wicket for 46 one ball after being missed by Rabeya Khan, Hasini Perera made the opposition suffer.

She registered a debut international fifty, accumulating 85 from 99 balls and contributing to an crucial 74-run stand fifth-wicket association with Nilakshi de Silva.

The Bangladeshi team, led by Shorna Akter's impressive bowling figures, dragged themselves back to the match, with Nilakshi's removal in the 34th over initiating a Lankan collapse from 174 for four to 202 all out.

While batting second, the Lankan team's opening bowlers Malki Madara and Prabodhani limited Bangladesh to 23 for one in a uninspiring powerplay and they were subsequently reduced to 44-3.

Sharmin Akter and Nigar Sultana Joty reconstructed their batting effort, contributing 82 for the fourth wicket before Sharmin withdrew due to injury for a determined 64 in the 36th over.

It was leaning toward the chasing team entering the final two overs, with merely 12 more runs necessary.

Yet, Dasanayaka sent back Ritu and conceded merely three runs before the captain's chaos, with Rabeya, Nahida, captain Joty and Marufa Akter all sent back as Sri Lanka grabbed the win at the final moment.

Finally, it was a contest of nerves. The seasoned Athapaththu, who moved aside a few of teammates as she prepared to deliver the final over, held her nerve. The opposition did not.

There will be plenty of doubts about the team's batting performance. They possibly have been needing around 270-280 with the Lankan team looking settled on 159 with four wickets down in the 30th over, but instead the chase was much lower.

Nevertheless, Bangladesh displayed insufficient intent from the start, accumulating runs at less than 2.5 scoring rate during the initial phase, experiencing a top-order collapse, and finally making themselves excessive to achieve.

But no matter what issues there are with their batting approach, if they had accepted their opportunities in the fielding department, that 203-run target goal would have been substantially lower.

It required them three efforts to end the 72-run partnership second-wicket association, with keeper Joty being unable to take a difficult catch as wicketkeeper to send back Perera on 23 runs before the captain survived from a caught and bowled possibility against Rabeya Khan.

Perera was spilled once more on 55 runs and 63 runs, the final opportunity going straight to Jhilik at cover position, before ultimately being dismissed lbw by Shorna Akter as she sought to increase the tempo with batting partners falling near her.

Afterwards in the innings, there was also a stumping chance missed and a missed run-out, while the run-out chance was a somewhat unlucky, with Rubya Haider substituting with the gloves due to an fitness issue to the regular keeper.

Regrettably for the team, such fielding issues are not at all a one-off. They've failed to catch 14 chances from a potential 27 at this tournament and have the poorest catch efficiency (less than 50%) of the competing sides.

They are a squad who are overall progressing in the right direction – they are competing in just their second one-day World Cup ultimately – but inadequate fielding is a obvious problem which demands focus.