Sri Lanka overcomes the Bangladeshi side to preserve their campaign alive

ICC Women's World Cup, Navi Mumbai

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

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

The Lankan side emerge victorious by seven runs margin

Sri Lanka secured four wickets in the final over to achieve a nail-biting win over Bangladesh and maintain their slim aspirations of making it for the tournament knockout stage ongoing.

Chasing a modest score of 203 on a batting-friendly pitch in Navi Mumbai, the Bangladeshi team wanted nine additional runs from the remaining six bowls.

However, Lankan skipper Chamari Athapaththu secured three crucial wickets in four bowls and Nilakshi de Silva dismissed via run-out Nahida Akter to bring about a dramatic win for the Lankan team.

The win – the Lankan team's initial of the competition after three defeats and two no-results against the Australian team and New Zealand – moves them equal on four points with the Indian team and New Zealand, who meet each other on Thursday.

The Bangladeshi team, in contrast, suffered a fifth successive loss since securing victory in their initial game against the Pakistani team and have been removed from contention.

Even though Bangladesh made the excellent commencement, with Marufa Akter striking with the initial ball of the game to remove Vishmi Gunaratne, they were appropriately made to pay for a poor fielding performance.

They offered lifelines to Perera, who was spilled multiple times, and Athapaththu.

Even though Athapaththu could not capitalise, dismissed leg before wicket for 46 one ball after being put down by Rabeya, Perera made the opposition suffer.

She registered a maiden international fifty, accumulating 85 from 99 balls and sharing an crucial 74-run fifth-wicket collaboration with Nilakshi de Silva.

The Bangladeshi team, spearheaded by Shorna Akter's impressive bowling figures, fought themselves back into the contest, with De Silva's wicket in the 34th innings segment initiating a Sri Lanka batting collapse from 174-4 to 202 all out.

In reply, Sri Lanka's initial pace attack Madara and Udeshika Prabodhani limited the opposition to 23-1 in a uninspiring opening overs and they were later brought down to 44 for three.

Sharmin Akter and Nigar Sultana Joty reconstructed their batting effort, contributing 82 for the fourth wicket collaboration before the batter retired hurt for a resolute 64 in the 36th innings segment.

It was in favor of Bangladesh approaching the last two bowling phases, with merely 12 more runs necessary.

However, Sugandika Dasanayaka removed Ritu and conceded merely three runs before the captain's decisive intervention, with Rabeya Khan, Nahida, skipper Joty and Marufa all removed as the Lankan team grabbed the win at the very end.

Ultimately, it was a match of nerves. The seasoned Athapaththu, who directed away a few of team-mates as she prepared to bowl the final over, held her composure. Bangladesh failed to.

There will be plenty of questions about Bangladesh's batting performance. They possibly have been pursuing 270 or 280 with Sri Lanka looking settled on 159-4 in the 30th innings segment, but instead the target was significantly less.

However, Bangladesh showed little purpose from the very beginning, accumulating runs at under 2.5 runs each over during the initial phase, suffering a early batting collapse, and eventually making themselves excessive to accomplish.

But whatever problems there are with their batting lineup, if they had seized their catches in the field, that 203 total objective would have been considerably lower.

It needed them three tries to break the 72-run second-wicket association, with wicketkeeper Joty not managing to take a difficult opportunity while keeping to dismiss Perera on her score of 23 before the captain was spared from a return catch possibility against Rabeya Khan.

Perera was dropped again on her score of 55 and 63 runs, the latter chance flying right to Jhilik at cover, before eventually being given out leg before wicket by Shorna as she sought to increase the tempo with teammates getting out near her.

Subsequently in the batting effort, there was furthermore a missed stumping and a failed run-out, although the latter was a somewhat unfortunate, with Rubya Haider substituting with the wicketkeeping gloves following an injury to Joty.

Regrettably for Bangladesh, such fielding woes are nowhere near a isolated incident. They've missed 14 catches from a possible 27 at this competition and boast the worst catch efficiency (less than 50%) of the eight teams.

They are a team who are typically heading in the proper way – they are competing in just their second 50-over World Cup ultimately – but substandard fielding is a obvious issue which needs attention.