Sri Lanka defeats Bangladesh to preserve their campaign breathing

ICC Women's World Cup, Mumbai

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

The Bangladeshi team 195-9 (50 overs): Joty 77 (98); Athapaththu 4-42

The Lankan side emerge victorious by seven runs

The Lankan cricket team secured four crucial dismissals in the last innings segment to seal a nail-biting victory over Bangladesh and maintain their faint chances of qualifying for the World Cup semi-finals alive.

Chasing a attainable score of 203 on a good batting surface in the Mumbai stadium, Bangladesh needed nine runs from the final six bowls.

Yet, Lankan skipper Chamari Athapaththu claimed three important dismissals in four balls and Nilakshi de Silva ran out Nahida Akter to bring about a dramatic success for the Lankan team.

The victory – Sri Lanka's maiden of the tournament after three unsuccessful matches and two abandoned games against Australia and the Kiwi side – elevates them equal on four points with the Indian team and New Zealand, who confront each other on the coming Thursday.

Bangladesh, in contrast, experienced a fifth consecutive defeat since securing victory in their first match against the Pakistani team and have been eliminated.

Although Bangladesh made the perfect start, with Marufa taking a wicket with the opening bowl of the match to remove Gunaratne, they were rightfully penalized for a poor fielding effort.

They gifted lifelines to Perera, who was dropped three times, and the Lankan captain.

While Athapaththu was unable to make it count, removed leg before wicket for 46 just one delivery after being dropped by Rabeya Khan, Hasini Perera forced the opposition suffer.

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

The Bangladeshi team, guided by Shorna's 3-27, pulled themselves back in the match, with Nilakshi's dismissal in the 34th bowling segment triggering a Lankan batting collapse from 174 for four to 202 total.

In reply, the Lankan team's starting bowlers Madara and Prabodhani contained the opposition to 23 with one wicket down in a uninspiring powerplay and they were subsequently brought down to 44 with three wickets lost.

Sharmin and Nigar Sultana Joty reconstructed their batting effort, contributing an 82-run partnership for the fourth wicket collaboration before the batter left the field injured for a resolute 64 in the 36th bowling phase.

It was advantage the chasing team approaching the remaining two bowling phases, with only 12 more runs needed.

Yet, Dasanayaka dismissed Ritu Moni and allowed just three scoring runs before the captain's decisive intervention, with Rabeya Khan, Nahida Akter, skipper Joty and Marufa Akter all removed as the Lankan team snatched the win at the very end.

Ultimately, it was a contest of nerves. The very experienced Lankan captain, who directed away a several of teammates as she got ready to bowl the last over, maintained her composure. The opposition did not.

There will be many doubts about the team's batting display. They might well have been pursuing 270 to 280 with Sri Lanka seeming comfortable on 159 with four wickets down in the 30th over, but instead the chase was much lower.

Yet, Bangladesh lacked intent from ball one, accumulating runs at below 2.5 runs each over during the initial phase, suffering a top-order collapse, and ultimately making themselves too much to achieve.

But no matter what problems there are with their batting approach, if they had seized their opportunities in the fielding department, that 203-run target objective would have been substantially lower.

It needed them three tries to break the 72-run partnership second-wicket collaboration, with wicketkeeper Joty not managing to take a challenging opportunity as wicketkeeper to dismiss Hasini Perera on 23 runs before Athapaththu got a reprieve from a return catch chance against Rabeya.

The batter was dropped further on 55 and her score of 63, the final opportunity traveling right to Rubya Haider Jhilik at cover, before eventually being given out leg before wicket by Shorna as she tried to accelerate the scoring with batting partners being dismissed around her.

Later in the game, there was also a stumping chance missed and a missed run-out, even though the second one was a somewhat regrettable, with Rubya Haider deputising with the gloves following an injury to Joty.

Sadly for Bangladesh, such fielding issues are nowhere near a isolated incident. They've missed 14 opportunities from a possible 27 chances at this World Cup and display the worst fielding effectiveness (less than 50%) of the eight teams.

They are a side who are generally moving in the right direction – they are competing in only their second one-day World Cup ultimately – but poor fielding standards is a glaring issue which requires focus.