Sri Lanka defeats Bangladesh to preserve their World Cup campaign alive

Women's Cricket World Cup, Mumbai

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

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

Sri Lanka win by seven runs margin

The Lankan cricket team secured four crucial dismissals in the final over to achieve a thrilling victory over Bangladesh and preserve their slim aspirations of qualifying for the tournament knockout stage alive.

Chasing a modest total of 203 on a good batting surface in the Mumbai stadium, the Bangladeshi team required nine more runs from the last six bowls.

Nevertheless, Sri Lanka captain Chamari Athapaththu took three important dismissals in four balls and de Silva ran out Nahida to secure a thrilling success for Sri Lanka.

The victory – Sri Lanka's maiden of the competition after three unsuccessful matches and two abandoned games against Australia and the Kiwi side – elevates them level on four points with India and the New Zealand side, who confront each other on the coming Thursday.

Bangladesh, on the other hand, experienced a fifth successive defeat since securing victory in their initial game against the Pakistani team and have been removed from contention.

Although Bangladesh made the perfect start, with Marufa taking a wicket with the first delivery of the encounter to remove Vishmi Gunaratne, they were appropriately made to pay for a poor fielding display.

They provided lifelines to Perera, who was spilled on three occasions, and Athapaththu.

Although Athapaththu was unable to take advantage, removed lbw for 46 one ball after being missed by Rabeya Khan, Hasini Perera made Bangladesh regret it.

She scored a first international half-century, making 85 from 99 bowls and contributing to an important 74-run fifth-wicket collaboration with Nilakshi de Silva.

Bangladesh, spearheaded by Shorna Akter's 3-27, fought themselves back to the match, with Nilakshi's wicket in the 34th over causing a Lankan collapse from 174 with four wickets down to 202 total.

While batting second, the Lankan team's initial pace attack Madara and Prabodhani limited the opposition to 23 with one wicket down in a uninspiring initial phase and they were subsequently reduced to 44 for three.

Sharmin and Nigar Sultana Joty restored their score, adding 82 runs for the fourth wicket before Sharmin left the field injured for a determined 64 in the 36th innings segment.

It was leaning toward the chasing team heading into the last two bowling phases, with merely 12 additional runs required.

However, Sugandika Dasanayaka removed Ritu and gave away just three runs before the captain's chaos, with Rabeya, Nahida, skipper Joty and Marufa Akter all dismissed as Sri Lanka grabbed the victory at the final moment.

Ultimately, it was a game of composure. The highly experienced Athapaththu, who directed away a handful of fellow players as she set herself to bowl the last over, kept her nerve. The opposition did not.

There will be numerous inquiries about the team's batting display. They could easily have been needing 270 or 280 with Sri Lanka looking settled on 159 with four wickets down in the 30th bowling phase, but rather the chase was significantly less.

However, Bangladesh displayed insufficient aggression from the very beginning, making runs at below 2.5 runs per over during the opening overs, suffering a early batting collapse, and finally making themselves overwhelming to do.

But whatever difficulties there are with their batting lineup, if they had seized their catches in the field, that 203-run target target would have been significantly less.

It took them three efforts to terminate the 72-run partnership second-wicket collaboration, with keeper Joty being unable to take a difficult opportunity behind the stumps to remove Perera on her score of 23 before the captain got a reprieve from a return catch possibility against Rabeya Khan.

Perera was spilled again on her score of 55 and 63, the final opportunity going straight to Jhilik at cover position, before eventually being trapped lbw by Shorna as she attempted to increase the tempo with teammates getting out near her.

Subsequently in the batting effort, there was also a missed stumping and a failed run-out, while the run-out chance was a little unfortunate, with Rubya Haider deputising with the keeping duties following an fitness issue to the regular keeper.

Sadly for Bangladesh, such fielding problems are far from a single occurrence. They've missed 14 catches from a possible 27 chances at this tournament and boast the lowest catch efficiency (less than 50%) of the participating teams.

They are a squad who are generally progressing in the proper way – they are playing in only their second 50-over World Cup ultimately – but inadequate fielding is a obvious concern which needs attention.