The Lankan team beats the Bangladeshi side to keep their World Cup tournament hopes alive

ICC Women's World Cup, Mumbai

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

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

Sri Lanka win by seven runs margin

Sri Lanka claimed four crucial dismissals in the last over to complete a nail-biting win over their opponents and maintain their slim hopes of making it for the World Cup semi-finals ongoing.

Pursuing a attainable target of 203 on a good batting surface in the Mumbai stadium, Bangladesh wanted nine additional runs from the remaining six balls.

Yet, Sri Lanka captain Athapaththu claimed three important dismissals in four balls and de Silva ran out Nahida Akter to achieve a dramatic success for the Lankan team.

The triumph – Sri Lanka's initial of the World Cup after three losses and two abandoned games against Australia and New Zealand – elevates them tied on four match points with India and the New Zealand side, who face each other on Thursday.

Bangladesh, on the other hand, endured a fifth straight setback since securing victory in their first match against Pakistan and have been eliminated.

While Bangladesh made the ideal beginning, with Marufa striking with the opening bowl of the encounter to remove Gunaratne, they were rightfully punished for a poor fielding effort.

They gifted second chances to Hasini Perera, who was missed on three occasions, and the Lankan captain.

While Athapaththu was unable to take advantage, dismissed leg before wicket for 46 a single bowl after being dropped by Rabeya Khan, Hasini Perera forced Bangladesh suffer.

She scored a first international fifty, scoring 85 from 99 bowls and contributing to an important 74-run stand fifth-wicket with Nilakshi de Silva.

The Bangladeshi team, guided by Shorna Akter's three wickets for 27 runs, dragged themselves back to the game, with De Silva's removal in the 34th bowling segment triggering a Lankan downfall from 174 for four to 202 total.

During their chase, the Lankan team's opening bowlers Madara and Prabodhani contained Bangladesh to 23 with one wicket down in a uninspiring initial phase and they were later brought down to 44 with three wickets lost.

Sharmin and Joty restored their score, putting on an 82-run partnership for the fourth wicket before Sharmin left the field injured for a determined 64 in the 36th over.

It was in favor of Bangladesh entering the last two bowling phases, with only 12 more runs necessary.

However, Dasanayaka sent back Ritu Moni and gave away only three runs before Athapaththu's chaos, with Rabeya, Nahida Akter, captain Joty and Marufa all removed as Sri Lanka grabbed the triumph at the final moment.

In the end, it was a game of composure. The highly experienced Lankan captain, who moved aside a few of team-mates as she prepared to bowl the decisive over, held her composure. The opposition failed to.

There will be plenty of inquiries about the team's batting display. They might well have been chasing 270 to 280 with the Lankan team seeming at ease on 159-4 in the 30th innings segment, but instead the chase was much lower.

Nevertheless, Bangladesh showed little aggression from the start, scoring at less than 2.5 scoring rate during the opening overs, suffering a early batting collapse, and finally forcing themselves too much to accomplish.

But no matter what problems there are with their batting lineup, if they had accepted their chances in the field, that 203-run target target would have been considerably smaller.

It took them three tries to terminate the 72-run stand second-wicket collaboration, with wicketkeeper Nigar Sultana failing to hold a tough catch behind the stumps to send back Perera on 23 runs before Athapaththu was spared from a caught and bowled chance against Rabeya Khan.

Perera was dropped further on 55 runs and 63, the latter chance traveling straight to Jhilik at cover, before eventually being trapped lbw by Shorna Akter as she sought to increase the tempo with partners being dismissed around her.

Subsequently in the batting effort, there was furthermore a missed stumping and a missed run-out, although the latter was a little unlucky, with Rubya Haider deputising with the keeping duties after an fitness issue to the regular keeper.

Regrettably for Bangladesh, such fielding problems are not at all a single occurrence. They've missed 14 chances from a available 27 at this tournament and boast the lowest catching success rate (48.1%) of the participating teams.

They are a squad who are generally progressing in the right direction – they are participating in merely their second 50-over World Cup after all – but poor fielding is a prominent concern which requires improvement.