The Lankan team overcomes Bangladesh to maintain their World Cup tournament hopes alive

ICC Women's World Cup, Navi 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

The Lankan side emerge victorious by seven runs

The Lankan cricket team secured four crucial dismissals in the final over to seal a nail-biting victory over Bangladesh and keep their faint chances of qualifying for the tournament knockout stage ongoing.

Pursuing a attainable target of 203 on a batting-friendly pitch in Navi Mumbai, Bangladesh required nine more runs from the remaining six bowls.

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

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

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

While Bangladesh made the perfect start, with Marufa taking a wicket with the opening bowl of the encounter to send back Vishmi Gunaratne, they were rightfully punished for a subpar fielding effort.

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

While Athapaththu failed to capitalise, dismissed leg before wicket for 46 just one delivery after being missed by Rabeya, Perera forced the opposition suffer.

She registered a debut international fifty, accumulating 85 from 99 balls and building an crucial 74-run stand fifth-wicket with De Silva.

The Bangladeshi team, guided by Shorna Akter's impressive bowling figures, pulled themselves back to the contest, with De Silva's wicket in the 34th innings segment initiating a Sri Lanka batting collapse from 174 with four wickets down to 202 total.

While batting second, the Lankan team's starting bowlers Madara and Udeshika Prabodhani limited the opposition to 23 for one in a lacklustre opening overs and they were afterwards reduced to 44 for three.

Sharmin Akter and Nigar Sultana Joty restored their batting effort, putting on an 82-run partnership for the fourth wicket collaboration before the batter left the field injured for a determined 64 in the 36th over.

It was leaning toward Bangladesh approaching the final two innings segments, with just 12 additional runs necessary.

Yet, Sugandika Dasanayaka removed Ritu and gave away just three scoring runs before Athapaththu's chaos, with Rabeya, Nahida Akter, captain Joty and Marufa all removed as Sri Lanka grabbed the victory at the death.

Ultimately, it was a match of composure. The highly experienced Athapaththu, who directed away a handful of fellow players as she set herself to deliver the final over, maintained her nerve. Bangladesh did not.

There will be many questions about the team's batting effort. They possibly have been needing 270 or 280 with Sri Lanka appearing comfortable on 159 for four in the 30th bowling phase, but in contrast the chase was much lower.

However, the batting side lacked aggression from the start, scoring at less than 2.5 runs each over during the powerplay, suffering a top-order collapse, and eventually forcing themselves excessive to do.

But whatever problems there are with their batting approach, if they had seized their opportunities in the fielding area, that 203-run goal would have been substantially less.

It required them three attempts to break the 72-run stand second-wicket, with wicketkeeper Joty failing to take a tough chance as wicketkeeper to remove Perera on her score of 23 before the captain was spared from a caught and bowled opportunity against Rabeya Khan.

The batter was spilled again on her score of 55 and 63 runs, the latter chance going right to Rubya Haider Jhilik at cover position, before finally being given out leg before wicket by Shorna as she sought to accelerate the scoring with partners being dismissed near her.

Afterwards in the innings, there was also a stumping chance missed and a missed run-out, even though the latter was a slightly unlucky, with Rubya Haider substituting with the gloves following an injury to Joty.

Sadly for Bangladesh, such fielding issues are far from a isolated incident. They've missed 14 chances from a possible 27 at this competition and boast the worst catching success rate (less than 50%) of the competing sides.

They are a squad who are overall progressing in the correct path – they are competing in merely their second one-day World Cup ultimately – but substandard fielding is a obvious concern which needs focus.