Sri Lanka beats the Bangladeshi side to preserve their World Cup tournament hopes breathing

ICC Women's 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); Athapaththu 4-42

Sri Lanka win by seven runs

Sri Lanka secured four wickets in the last over to seal a heart-stopping victory over Bangladesh and preserve their narrow hopes of qualifying for the World Cup semi-finals alive.

Pursuing a below-par total of 203 on a good batting surface in Navi Mumbai, the Bangladeshi team needed nine runs from the final six balls.

Nevertheless, Lankan skipper Chamari Athapaththu secured three important dismissals in four balls and de Silva ran out Nahida to bring about a dramatic success for Sri Lanka.

The triumph – Sri Lanka's initial of the World Cup after three unsuccessful matches and two washed-out matches against the Australian team and New Zealand – elevates them level on four match points with India and the New Zealand side, who confront each other on Thursday.

Bangladesh, on the other hand, experienced a fifth consecutive setback since winning their first match against the Pakistani team and have been removed from contention.

Even though the Bangladeshi side made the excellent commencement, with Marufa taking a wicket with the first delivery of the encounter to dismiss Gunaratne, they were rightfully punished for a poor fielding effort.

They offered second chances to Perera, who was dropped three times, and Athapaththu.

Although Athapaththu failed to make it count, dismissed leg before wicket for 46 one ball after being put down by Rabeya Khan, Perera forced the opposition pay.

She scored a debut international 50-run score, accumulating 85 from 99 bowls and contributing to an crucial 74-run partnership fifth-wicket with De Silva.

The Bangladeshi team, guided by Shorna's 3-27, fought themselves back in the contest, with De Silva's dismissal in the 34th innings segment triggering a Sri Lanka downfall from 174 with four wickets down to 202 all out.

While batting second, the Lankan team's starting bowlers Malki Madara and Udeshika Prabodhani restricted the opposition to 23 with one wicket down in a disappointing powerplay and they were later brought down to 44-3.

Sharmin and Joty rebuilt their innings, adding 82 for the fourth wicket before the batter retired hurt for a resolute 64 in the 36th bowling phase.

It was advantage the chasing team approaching the final two overs, with just 12 runs required.

However, Dasanayaka dismissed Ritu Moni and gave away merely three runs before Athapaththu's chaos, with Rabeya Khan, Nahida, captain Joty and Marufa Akter all dismissed as Sri Lanka snatched the win at the very end.

In the end, it was a match of composure. The highly experienced Lankan captain, who ushered away a several of team-mates as she set herself to bowl the last over, maintained her composure. The opposition failed to.

There will be plenty of questions about Bangladesh's batting display. They could easily have been needing around 270-280 with Sri Lanka seeming at ease on 159 for four in the 30th innings segment, but in contrast the target was considerably smaller.

Nevertheless, Bangladesh lacked purpose from ball one, making runs at under 2.5 scoring rate during the initial phase, undergoing a early batting collapse, and ultimately leaving themselves overwhelming to accomplish.

But whatever difficulties there are with their batting, if they had accepted their catches in the field, that 203-run goal would have been considerably less.

It required them three efforts to break the 72-run second-wicket collaboration, with keeper Nigar Sultana not managing to hold a challenging opportunity behind the stumps to remove Perera on 23 before the captain survived from a caught and bowled chance against Rabeya Khan.

Perera was dropped further on her score of 55 and 63, the final opportunity traveling straight to Jhilik at cover position, before eventually being given out lbw by Shorna Akter as she attempted to accelerate the scoring with batting partners getting out around her.

Later in the innings, there was also a stumping chance missed and a failed run-out, even though the second one was a somewhat unfortunate, with Rubya Haider substituting with the wicketkeeping gloves after an physical problem to the regular keeper.

Unfortunately for the team, such fielding issues are nowhere near a single occurrence. They've failed to catch 14 opportunities from a potential 27 at this competition and boast the lowest catch efficiency (less than 50%) of the competing sides.

They are a squad who are overall moving in the proper way – they are playing in only their second one-day World Cup after all – but substandard fielding standards is a obvious issue which demands focus.