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

Women's Cricket World Cup, Navi Mumbai

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

The Bangladeshi team 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 last over to seal a heart-stopping victory over their opponents and preserve their narrow aspirations of making it for the tournament knockout stage intact.

Needing a modest target of 203 on a favorable wicket in the Mumbai stadium, Bangladesh required nine more runs from the last six balls.

Yet, Lankan skipper Athapaththu took three wickets in four deliveries and Nilakshi de Silva dismissed via run-out Nahida to achieve a thrilling victory for Sri Lanka.

The victory – Sri Lanka's maiden of the competition after three losses and two washed-out matches against the Australian team and New Zealand – pushes them level on four points with the Indian team and the New Zealand side, who face each other on Thursday.

The Bangladeshi team, in contrast, experienced a fifth successive defeat since winning their first match against the Pakistani team and have been eliminated.

Even though the Bangladeshi side made the perfect start, with Marufa taking a wicket with the first delivery of the game to dismiss Vishmi Gunaratne, they were deservedly made to pay for a subpar fielding display.

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

Even though the Sri Lankan skipper could not capitalise, dismissed lbw for 46 just one delivery after being missed by Rabeya, Perera made the opposition pay.

She scored a maiden international half-century, scoring 85 from 99 bowls and sharing an significant 74-run stand fifth-wicket association with Nilakshi de Silva.

Bangladesh, spearheaded by Shorna Akter's impressive bowling figures, dragged themselves back into the game, with De Silva's wicket in the 34th over causing a Sri Lanka downfall from 174-4 to 202 all out.

During their chase, Sri Lanka's initial pace attack Madara and Udeshika Prabodhani limited Bangladesh to 23 with one wicket down in a uninspiring opening overs and they were afterwards reduced to 44 with three wickets lost.

Sharmin and Nigar Sultana Joty rebuilt their batting effort, adding 82 for the fourth wicket collaboration before Sharmin left the field injured for a resolute 64 in the 36th bowling phase.

It was advantage Bangladesh approaching the remaining two overs, with just 12 additional runs required.

Nevertheless, Dasanayaka dismissed Ritu and gave away only three runs before the captain's chaos, with Rabeya Khan, Nahida, captain Joty and Marufa all removed as Sri Lanka snatched the win at the very end.

Ultimately, it was a match of nerves. The seasoned Athapaththu, who ushered away a several of team-mates as she prepared to bowl the decisive over, held hers. Bangladesh could not.

There will be many inquiries about Bangladesh's batting display. They could easily have been chasing 270 or 280 with Sri Lanka seeming settled on 159 for four in the 30th over, but instead the chase was significantly less.

Yet, the batting side displayed insufficient intent from the very beginning, making runs at below 2.5 scoring rate during the initial phase, undergoing a initial wicket loss, and eventually leaving themselves excessive to do.

But whatever problems there are with their batting lineup, if they had accepted their chances in the fielding department, that 203 total goal would have been considerably smaller.

It took them three tries to terminate the 72-run second-wicket collaboration, with keeper Joty failing to grab a difficult catch behind the stumps to send back Hasini Perera on her score of 23 before the captain survived from a caught and bowled chance chance against Rabeya Khan.

The batter was missed further on 55 and 63 runs, the final opportunity traveling right to Rubya Haider Jhilik at cover position, before finally being dismissed lbw by Shorna as she attempted to up the ante with teammates falling around her.

Afterwards in the game, there was also a failed stumping and a failed run-out, even though the run-out chance was a little unfortunate, with Jhilik deputising with the gloves after an physical problem to Joty.

Regrettably for the team, such fielding issues are not at all a one-off. They've failed to catch 14 catches from a potential 27 at this World Cup and have the lowest catching success rate (48.1 percent) of the participating teams.

They are a squad who are generally progressing in the right direction – they are playing in just their second ODI World Cup after all – but inadequate fielding standards is a prominent problem which requires attention.