Sri Lanka defeats the Bangladeshi side to keep their World Cup tournament hopes breathing

ICC Women's World Cup, Navi Mumbai

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

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

The Lankan side emerge victorious by seven runs

Sri Lanka claimed four crucial dismissals in the final innings segment to complete a thrilling triumph over Bangladesh and keep their narrow hopes of qualifying for the World Cup semi-finals ongoing.

Chasing a below-par total of 203 on a favorable wicket in the Mumbai stadium, Bangladesh needed nine additional runs from the last six deliveries.

However, Lankan skipper Chamari Athapaththu took three wickets in four bowls and de Silva dismissed via run-out Nahida to achieve a exciting victory for Sri Lanka.

The victory – Sri Lanka's maiden of the competition after three unsuccessful matches and two no-results against the Australian team and the Kiwi side – elevates them equal on four match points with India and New Zealand, who face each other on Thursday.

Bangladesh, however, experienced a fifth straight loss since winning their tournament opener against the Pakistani team and have been knocked out.

While the Bangladeshi side got off to the excellent commencement, with Marufa Akter taking a wicket with the opening bowl of the game to remove Vishmi Gunaratne, they were deservedly made to pay for a poor fielding display.

They provided lifelines to Hasini Perera, who was missed on three occasions, and Athapaththu.

Even though Athapaththu failed to capitalise, removed leg before wicket for 46 one ball after being put down by Rabeya, Hasini Perera forced Bangladesh regret it.

She scored a first international 50-run score, accumulating 85 from 99 balls and contributing to an significant 74-run fifth-wicket association with Nilakshi de Silva.

The Bangladeshi team, spearheaded by Shorna Akter's three wickets for 27 runs, fought themselves back to the match, with Nilakshi's removal in the 34th over initiating a Sri Lanka batting collapse from 174 for four to 202 complete.

In reply, the Lankan team's opening bowlers Madara and Prabodhani limited Bangladesh to 23-1 in a disappointing opening overs and they were later reduced to 44 for three.

Sharmin and Joty rebuilt their innings, contributing 82 for the fourth wicket before the batter withdrew due to injury for a resolute 64 in the 36th innings segment.

It was advantage Bangladesh heading into the final two overs, with merely 12 additional runs needed.

Nevertheless, Sugandika Dasanayaka dismissed Ritu and gave away only three runs before the captain's chaos, with Rabeya Khan, Nahida Akter, captain Joty and Marufa all sent back as the Lankan team seized the win at the death.

Finally, it was a contest of nerves. The very experienced Lankan captain, who ushered away a few of team-mates as she set herself to bowl the decisive over, held her composure. Bangladesh did not.

There will be many inquiries about the team's batting effort. They might well have been pursuing 270 or 280 with Sri Lanka appearing settled on 159 with four wickets down in the 30th bowling phase, but instead the chase was considerably smaller.

Yet, Bangladesh showed little intent from the start, making runs at under 2.5 runs each over during the powerplay, suffering a initial wicket loss, and finally forcing themselves too much to accomplish.

But no matter what problems there are with their batting lineup, if they had seized their catches in the field, that 203-run objective would have been substantially lower.

It required them three efforts to end the 72-run partnership second-wicket, with wicketkeeper Joty not managing to take a difficult opportunity behind the stumps to send back Perera on her score of 23 before the captain survived from a caught and bowled possibility against Rabeya.

Perera was dropped further on 55 runs and 63, the last attempt going directly to Rubya Haider Jhilik at cover, before finally being dismissed lbw by Shorna as she attempted to up the ante with batting partners getting out near her.

Later in the innings, there was furthermore a failed stumping and a missed run-out, while the latter was a somewhat unfortunate, with Jhilik deputising with the keeping duties due to an physical problem to Joty.

Unfortunately for Bangladesh, such fielding problems are far from a isolated incident. They've failed to catch 14 catches from a available 27 at this tournament and display the poorest catch efficiency (less than 50%) of the participating teams.

They are a squad who are overall heading in the correct path – they are participating in only their second one-day World Cup in the end – but poor fielding standards is a glaring problem which demands attention.