The Lankan team beats Bangladesh to preserve their World Cup tournament hopes alive

ICC Women's World Cup, Navi Mumbai

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

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

The Lankan side win by seven runs margin

The Lankan cricket team secured four wickets in the final over to complete a nail-biting victory over Bangladesh and maintain their faint aspirations of making it for the World Cup semi-finals intact.

Pursuing a attainable total of 203 on a good batting surface in Navi Mumbai, Bangladesh needed nine more runs from the final six deliveries.

Nevertheless, Sri Lanka captain Athapaththu secured three important dismissals in four balls and de Silva dismissed via run-out Nahida to secure a dramatic win for Sri Lanka.

The victory – the Lankan team's initial of the World Cup after three unsuccessful matches and two abandoned games against the Australian team and New Zealand – moves them equal on four match points with the Indian team and New Zealand, who meet each other on the coming Thursday.

The Bangladeshi team, in contrast, endured a fifth successive defeat since securing victory in their tournament opener against Pakistan and have been removed from contention.

While Bangladesh made the ideal beginning, with Marufa taking a wicket with the opening bowl of the encounter to send back Gunaratne, they were appropriately penalized for a disappointing fielding performance.

They provided reprieves to Perera, who was missed on three occasions, and Athapaththu.

While Athapaththu was unable to make it count, dismissed lbw for 46 just one delivery after being missed by Rabeya, Hasini Perera made Bangladesh suffer.

She registered a first international half-century, accumulating 85 from 99 balls and contributing to an important 74-run partnership fifth-wicket collaboration with De Silva.

The Bangladeshi team, guided by Shorna Akter's 3-27, dragged themselves back in the contest, with Nilakshi's removal in the 34th innings segment initiating a Sri Lanka collapse from 174 for four to 202 all out.

While batting second, the Lankan team's initial pace attack Madara and Udeshika Prabodhani contained the opposition to 23 for one in a lacklustre opening overs and they were subsequently brought down to 44 for three.

Sharmin and Nigar Sultana Joty rebuilt their innings, putting on 82 for the fourth wicket collaboration before Sharmin left the field injured for a stubborn 64 in the 36th over.

It was in favor of Bangladesh entering the final two bowling phases, with merely 12 additional runs necessary.

Nevertheless, Dasanayaka sent back Ritu and allowed only three runs before Athapaththu's decisive intervention, with Rabeya, Nahida Akter, captain Joty and Marufa Akter all removed as the Lankan team grabbed the victory at the very end.

Ultimately, it was a contest of nerves. The highly experienced Athapaththu, who directed away a few of teammates as she prepared to deliver the final over, kept her nerve. The opposition failed to.

There will be numerous inquiries about the team's batting display. They possibly have been chasing 270 to 280 with the Lankan team looking comfortable on 159 with four wickets down in the 30th over, but instead the target was considerably smaller.

Nevertheless, the batting side showed little aggression from the start, scoring at less than 2.5 runs each over during the initial phase, undergoing a top-order collapse, and eventually making themselves excessive to do.

But whatever difficulties there are with their batting lineup, if they had seized their opportunities in the fielding area, that 203-run target would have been significantly lower.

It took them three tries to terminate the 72-run stand second-wicket, with wicketkeeper Nigar Sultana failing to take a tough chance as wicketkeeper to remove Hasini Perera on 23 runs before the captain got a reprieve from a caught and bowled chance chance against Rabeya.

The batter was dropped again on 55 and 63 runs, the latter chance going directly to Jhilik at cover field, before finally being dismissed lbw by Shorna as she attempted to accelerate the scoring with partners getting out beside her.

Subsequently in the game, there was furthermore a stumping chance missed and a failed run-out, although the second one was a slightly regrettable, with Jhilik standing in with the keeping duties following an fitness issue to Joty.

Regrettably for the team, such fielding problems are not at all a isolated incident. They've missed 14 catches from a possible 27 at this competition and display the worst fielding effectiveness (less than 50%) of the participating teams.

They are a squad who are overall moving in the proper way – they are participating in only their second ODI World Cup ultimately – but substandard fielding standards is a glaring problem which demands improvement.