The Lankan team defeats the Bangladeshi side to keep their World Cup campaign ongoing

Women's Cricket World Cup, 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

Sri Lanka win by seven runs

Sri Lanka claimed four crucial dismissals in the last innings segment to achieve a nail-biting victory over Bangladesh and preserve their faint chances of qualifying for the World Cup semi-finals alive.

Needing a below-par target of 203 on a favorable wicket in the Mumbai stadium, the Bangladeshi team required nine more runs from the last six deliveries.

Nevertheless, Lankan skipper Athapaththu claimed three important dismissals in four balls and Nilakshi de Silva ran out Nahida Akter to achieve a exciting win for Sri Lanka.

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

The Bangladeshi team, however, experienced a fifth consecutive defeat since securing victory in their tournament opener against the Pakistani team and have been knocked out.

While Bangladesh made the excellent commencement, with Marufa Akter taking a wicket with the initial ball of the match to dismiss Gunaratne, they were rightfully penalized for a subpar fielding effort.

They provided second chances to Perera, who was dropped three times, and Athapaththu.

Even though the Sri Lankan skipper could not take advantage, dismissed leg before wicket for 46 a single bowl after being missed by Rabeya, Perera made Bangladesh regret it.

She achieved a maiden international fifty, accumulating 85 from 99 bowls and contributing to an significant 74-run partnership fifth-wicket with De Silva.

The Bangladeshi team, guided by Shorna Akter's three wickets for 27 runs, dragged themselves back to the game, with Nilakshi's removal in the 34th over initiating a Lankan downfall from 174 with four wickets down to 202 all out.

During their chase, Sri Lanka's starting bowlers Madara and Prabodhani limited Bangladesh to 23 with one wicket down in a disappointing initial phase and they were subsequently diminished to 44 for three.

Sharmin and Joty rebuilt their innings, adding 82 for the fourth wicket stand before the batter left the field injured for a resolute 64 in the 36th innings segment.

It was in favor of the chasing team heading into the remaining two innings segments, with only 12 runs necessary.

Yet, Dasanayaka sent back Ritu Moni and gave away merely three scoring runs before Athapaththu's chaos, with Rabeya, Nahida, captain Joty and Marufa all dismissed as the Lankan team grabbed the triumph at the very end.

Ultimately, it was a game of nerve. The highly experienced Athapaththu, who directed away a handful of teammates as she got ready to deliver the final over, kept her composure. The opposition could not.

There will be plenty of questions about Bangladesh's batting effort. They could easily have been chasing 270 or 280 with Sri Lanka seeming comfortable on 159 for four in the 30th innings segment, but rather the required total was considerably smaller.

Yet, the batting side displayed insufficient intent from ball one, making runs at under 2.5 runs per over during the opening overs, undergoing a early batting collapse, and ultimately making themselves excessive to accomplish.

But whatever difficulties there are with their batting lineup, if they had accepted their catches in the fielding area, that 203-run target would have been considerably less.

It took them three tries to break the 72-run second-wicket collaboration, with wicketkeeper Nigar Sultana not managing to grab a difficult opportunity behind the stumps to send back Perera on her score of 23 before Athapaththu got a reprieve from a return catch opportunity against Rabeya Khan.

The batter was missed further on 55 and her score of 63, the latter chance flying right to Jhilik at cover, before finally being trapped leg before wicket by Shorna as she sought to up the ante with teammates being dismissed beside her.

Subsequently in the batting effort, there was furthermore a missed stumping and a failed run-out, even though the second one was a slightly unlucky, with Rubya Haider standing in with the wicketkeeping gloves after an injury to Joty.

Regrettably for the team, such fielding woes are far from a one-off. They've failed to catch 14 chances from a available 27 chances at this tournament and have the lowest fielding effectiveness (48.1%) of the participating teams.

They are a team who are generally progressing in the correct path – they are competing in merely their second one-day World Cup in the end – but substandard fielding performance is a glaring issue which requires attention.