The Lankan team defeats Bangladesh to preserve their tournament hopes alive

Women's Cricket World Cup, Mumbai

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

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

The Lankan side win by seven runs

The Lankan cricket team took four crucial dismissals in the decisive innings segment to seal a thrilling win over their opponents and keep their slim chances of making it for the World Cup semi-finals intact.

Pursuing a below-par target of 203 on a good batting surface in the Mumbai stadium, Bangladesh required nine runs from the remaining six balls.

Yet, Sri Lanka captain Athapaththu took three crucial wickets in four balls and Nilakshi de Silva ran out Nahida Akter to achieve a dramatic victory for the Lankan team.

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

Bangladesh, on the other hand, endured a fifth successive loss since securing victory in their initial game against the Pakistani team and have been eliminated.

Although Bangladesh made the perfect start, with Marufa Akter striking with the opening bowl of the game to remove Vishmi Gunaratne, they were appropriately punished for a poor fielding display.

They offered reprieves to Hasini Perera, who was dropped on three occasions, and Athapaththu.

Although the Sri Lankan skipper failed to take advantage, sent back lbw for 46 just one delivery after being put down by Rabeya Khan, Hasini Perera made Bangladesh regret it.

She scored a maiden international 50-run score, scoring 85 from 99 balls and contributing to an significant 74-run fifth-wicket collaboration with Nilakshi de Silva.

The Bangladeshi team, guided by Shorna's 3-27, dragged themselves back into the game, with Nilakshi's wicket in the 34th innings segment causing a Sri Lanka batting collapse from 174 for four to 202 complete.

While batting second, the Lankan team's opening bowlers Madara and Prabodhani limited Bangladesh to 23 for one in a disappointing opening overs and they were later brought down to 44 for three.

Sharmin and Joty restored their score, putting on 82 for the fourth wicket stand before the batter withdrew due to injury for a resolute 64 in the 36th bowling phase.

It was in favor of the chasing team heading into the remaining two bowling phases, with merely 12 runs required.

Yet, Dasanayaka sent back Ritu Moni and allowed only three scoring runs before the captain's dramatic spell, with Rabeya, Nahida, skipper Joty and Marufa Akter all dismissed as the Lankan team grabbed the win at the final moment.

In the end, it was a match of nerves. The seasoned Lankan captain, who directed away a few of team-mates as she got ready to bowl the decisive over, maintained her nerve. Bangladesh failed to.

There will be plenty of doubts about Bangladesh's batting effort. They might well have been needing 270 or 280 with Sri Lanka seeming at ease on 159 for four in the 30th bowling phase, but instead the target was much lower.

Nevertheless, the batting side displayed insufficient purpose from the start, scoring at less than 2.5 runs each over during the powerplay, experiencing a initial wicket loss, and ultimately forcing themselves excessive to achieve.

But no matter what difficulties there are with their batting, if they had taken their chances in the fielding area, that 203 total goal would have been substantially less.

It needed them three tries to break the 72-run stand second-wicket association, with wicketkeeper Joty not managing to grab a tough opportunity behind the stumps to send back Hasini Perera on 23 runs before Athapaththu was spared from a return catch opportunity against Rabeya Khan.

The batter was dropped once more on her score of 55 and 63, the last attempt going right to Rubya Haider Jhilik at cover position, before finally being trapped lbw by Shorna as she tried to increase the tempo with teammates getting out near her.

Afterwards in the game, there was furthermore a missed stumping and a failed run-out, although the second one was a little unfortunate, with Rubya Haider deputising with the keeping duties due to an physical problem to the regular keeper.

Unfortunately for the team, such fielding problems are far from a isolated incident. They've failed to catch 14 chances from a available 27 chances at this tournament and display the lowest fielding effectiveness (less than 50%) of the participating teams.

They are a squad who are typically heading in the correct path – they are playing in only their second ODI World Cup after all – but inadequate fielding standards is a prominent problem which demands improvement.