Sri Lanka overcomes Bangladesh to maintain their campaign breathing

ICC Women's World Cup, Mumbai

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

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

The Lankan side win by seven runs margin

Sri Lanka claimed four wickets in the final over to complete a nail-biting victory over their opponents and preserve their slim chances of making it for the tournament knockout stage intact.

Pursuing a attainable total of 203 on a batting-friendly pitch in the Mumbai stadium, Bangladesh required nine more runs from the last six bowls.

Nevertheless, Lankan skipper Chamari Athapaththu secured three important dismissals in four bowls and de Silva ran out Nahida Akter to achieve a dramatic win for the Lankan team.

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

The Bangladeshi team, however, experienced a fifth straight setback since winning their first match against the Pakistani team and have been knocked out.

While the Bangladeshi side made the excellent commencement, with Marufa taking a wicket with the opening bowl of the match to remove Vishmi Gunaratne, they were appropriately made to pay for a disappointing fielding effort.

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

Although Athapaththu was unable to take advantage, sent back leg before wicket for 46 a single bowl after being put down by Rabeya, Hasini Perera made the opposition pay.

She scored a maiden international half-century, accumulating 85 from 99 bowls and building an important 74-run fifth-wicket collaboration with De Silva.

The Bangladeshi team, led by Shorna's 3-27, fought themselves back into the game, with De Silva's removal in the 34th bowling segment initiating a Lankan downfall from 174-4 to 202 all out.

During their chase, the Lankan team's initial pace attack Madara and Udeshika Prabodhani contained Bangladesh to 23-1 in a lacklustre opening overs and they were afterwards reduced to 44 for three.

Sharmin and Joty reconstructed their score, contributing 82 for the fourth wicket before Sharmin left the field injured for a determined 64 in the 36th bowling phase.

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

However, Dasanayaka dismissed Ritu Moni and gave away only three scoring runs before Athapaththu's chaos, with Rabeya, Nahida, captain Joty and Marufa all sent back as the Lankan team grabbed the victory at the final moment.

Ultimately, it was a game of nerve. The very experienced Lankan captain, who moved aside a handful of team-mates as she got ready to bowl the decisive over, kept her nerve. Bangladesh did not.

There will be many inquiries about the team's batting display. They might well have been chasing 270 to 280 with Sri Lanka appearing settled on 159 with four wickets down in the 30th over, but in contrast the required total was much lower.

Nevertheless, the batting side showed little aggression from ball one, accumulating runs at under 2.5 runs each over during the initial phase, undergoing a early batting collapse, and finally making themselves too much to do.

But no matter what difficulties there are with their batting approach, if they had taken their catches in the field, that 203 total objective would have been considerably smaller.

It took them three tries to break the 72-run stand second-wicket collaboration, with wicketkeeper Joty failing to grab a challenging opportunity behind the stumps to remove Hasini Perera on her score of 23 before the captain got a reprieve from a return catch possibility against Rabeya Khan.

The batter was missed once more on her score of 55 and 63, the final opportunity traveling straight to Rubya Haider Jhilik at cover, before finally being given out lbw by Shorna as she attempted to accelerate the scoring with teammates getting out around her.

Subsequently in the batting effort, there was also a failed stumping and a missed run-out, although the latter was a somewhat regrettable, with Rubya Haider standing in with the keeping duties after an fitness issue to Joty.

Unfortunately for Bangladesh, such fielding problems are not at all a single occurrence. They've dropped 14 chances from a available 27 at this competition and boast the poorest catching success rate (less than 50%) of the eight teams.

They are a side who are overall heading in the right direction – they are participating in merely their second one-day World Cup after all – but poor fielding standards is a prominent concern which demands focus.