The Lankan team defeats Bangladesh to preserve their tournament hopes ongoing

Women's Cricket World Cup, Navi Mumbai

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

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

Sri Lanka emerge victorious by seven runs margin

Sri Lanka claimed four wickets in the decisive over to achieve a thrilling triumph over Bangladesh and preserve their faint aspirations of making it for the tournament knockout stage alive.

Pursuing a modest score of 203 on a favorable wicket in the Mumbai stadium, the Bangladeshi team needed nine additional runs from the last six bowls.

Yet, Lankan skipper Athapaththu took three important dismissals in four bowls and de Silva ran out Nahida to bring about a exciting win for the Lankan team.

The victory – the Lankan team's initial of the World Cup after three defeats and two abandoned games against Australia and New Zealand – pushes them tied on four points with India and the New Zealand side, who meet each other on the coming Thursday.

The Bangladeshi team, on the other hand, experienced a fifth straight defeat since securing victory in their first match against the Pakistani team and have been knocked out.

While the Bangladeshi side made the perfect start, with Marufa Akter taking a wicket with the initial ball of the encounter to remove Gunaratne, they were deservedly penalized for a disappointing fielding display.

They provided second chances to Hasini Perera, who was spilled multiple times, and Athapaththu.

While Athapaththu was unable to make it count, sent back lbw for 46 one ball after being missed by Rabeya, Hasini Perera made the opposition suffer.

She registered a debut international 50-run score, scoring 85 from 99 balls and building an important 74-run stand fifth-wicket association with Nilakshi de Silva.

Bangladesh, led by Shorna Akter's impressive bowling figures, pulled themselves back in the contest, with De Silva's removal in the 34th bowling segment triggering a Sri Lanka collapse from 174-4 to 202 all out.

During their chase, Sri Lanka's opening bowlers Madara and Prabodhani restricted Bangladesh to 23 for one in a lacklustre initial phase and they were later brought down to 44-3.

Sharmin Akter and Joty reconstructed their score, adding 82 runs for the fourth wicket before Sharmin left the field injured for a resolute 64 in the 36th bowling phase.

It was leaning toward the chasing team heading into the remaining two overs, with merely 12 more runs required.

However, Dasanayaka removed Ritu Moni and gave away just three runs before Athapaththu's decisive intervention, with Rabeya Khan, Nahida Akter, skipper Joty and Marufa all dismissed as Sri Lanka grabbed the win at the final moment.

Finally, it was a game of nerve. The seasoned Athapaththu, who ushered away a several of teammates as she got ready to deliver the final over, kept her nerve. Bangladesh failed to.

There will be plenty of questions about the team's batting effort. They could easily have been chasing around 270-280 with the Lankan team looking settled on 159 with four wickets down in the 30th bowling phase, but in contrast the required total was much lower.

Yet, the batting side showed little intent from ball one, making runs at below 2.5 runs per over during the initial phase, undergoing a top-order collapse, and eventually forcing themselves too much to do.

But whatever issues there are with their batting, if they had accepted their chances in the field, that 203-run target would have been considerably less.

It required them three tries to end the 72-run partnership second-wicket association, with wicketkeeper Nigar Sultana being unable to take a challenging chance as wicketkeeper to remove Perera on 23 before Athapaththu survived from a caught and bowled possibility against Rabeya.

The batter was dropped once more on 55 runs and 63, the latter chance going directly to Jhilik at cover field, before finally being trapped leg before wicket by Shorna Akter as she attempted to up the ante with partners getting out beside her.

Subsequently in the game, there was furthermore a missed stumping and a failed run-out, while the second one was a slightly regrettable, with Jhilik standing in with the wicketkeeping gloves following an physical problem to the regular keeper.

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

They are a squad who are overall progressing in the right direction – they are participating in only their second one-day World Cup after all – but poor fielding is a obvious concern which requires focus.