Sri Lanka defeats the Bangladeshi side to maintain their World Cup tournament hopes alive

Women's Cricket World Cup, Mumbai

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

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

The Lankan side emerge victorious by seven runs

The Lankan cricket team claimed four crucial dismissals in the last innings segment to achieve a nail-biting win over their opponents and preserve their faint hopes of qualifying for the tournament knockout stage alive.

Needing a below-par target of 203 on a good batting surface in Navi Mumbai, Bangladesh required nine more runs from the last six balls.

Yet, Lankan skipper Athapaththu secured three wickets in four bowls and de Silva dismissed via run-out Nahida to achieve a dramatic success for Sri Lanka.

The win – Sri Lanka's first of the competition after three unsuccessful matches and two abandoned games against the Australian team and the Kiwi side – pushes them level on four points with India and the New Zealand side, who face each other on Thursday.

The Bangladeshi team, however, endured a fifth straight loss since securing victory in their initial game against Pakistan and have been knocked out.

Although the Bangladeshi side made the ideal beginning, with Marufa taking a wicket with the first delivery of the match to remove Vishmi Gunaratne, they were rightfully punished for a subpar fielding effort.

They gifted second chances to Hasini Perera, who was spilled on three occasions, and Athapaththu.

Although the Sri Lankan skipper failed to take advantage, removed leg before wicket for 46 just one delivery after being missed by Rabeya Khan, Perera forced the opposition suffer.

She scored a first international 50-run score, making 85 from 99 bowls and sharing an important 74-run partnership fifth-wicket association with De Silva.

The Bangladeshi team, guided by Shorna's impressive bowling figures, pulled themselves back to the match, with Nilakshi's wicket in the 34th over causing a Sri Lanka batting collapse from 174-4 to 202 complete.

While batting second, Sri Lanka's opening bowlers Madara and Prabodhani contained Bangladesh to 23-1 in a uninspiring powerplay and they were afterwards diminished to 44-3.

Sharmin and Nigar Sultana Joty rebuilt their innings, adding an 82-run partnership for the fourth wicket stand before Sharmin retired hurt for a determined 64 in the 36th innings segment.

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

However, Sugandika Dasanayaka removed Ritu Moni and gave away only three runs before the captain's dramatic spell, with Rabeya, Nahida, captain Joty and Marufa all removed as Sri Lanka seized the triumph at the very end.

Ultimately, it was a contest of nerves. The seasoned Lankan captain, who moved aside a handful of teammates as she set herself to deliver the last over, kept her composure. The opposition did not.

There will be many doubts about the team's batting display. They might well have been pursuing 270 or 280 with the Lankan team appearing settled on 159-4 in the 30th innings segment, but in contrast the target was considerably smaller.

Yet, the batting side lacked aggression from the very beginning, scoring at less than 2.5 scoring rate during the powerplay, undergoing a initial wicket loss, and ultimately leaving themselves overwhelming to achieve.

But whatever issues there are with their batting, if they had taken their opportunities in the fielding department, that 203 total goal would have been substantially smaller.

It took them three efforts to end the 72-run stand second-wicket association, with wicketkeeper Joty not managing to hold a challenging opportunity while keeping to dismiss Hasini Perera on 23 runs before Athapaththu was spared from a return catch chance against Rabeya Khan.

The batter was dropped again on 55 runs and 63 runs, the final opportunity going right to Jhilik at cover field, before ultimately being given out lbw by Shorna as she sought to increase the tempo with batting partners falling near her.

Afterwards in the batting effort, there was also a stumping chance missed and a run-out opportunity lost, while the run-out chance was a slightly unfortunate, with Rubya Haider standing in with the keeping duties following an fitness issue to the regular keeper.

Sadly for the team, such fielding problems are far from a isolated incident. They've missed 14 catches from a possible 27 at this tournament and boast the lowest fielding effectiveness (48.1%) of the eight teams.

They are a side who are overall progressing in the proper way – they are participating in just their second ODI World Cup after all – but substandard fielding performance is a prominent issue which needs focus.