The Lankan team beats Bangladesh to preserve their World Cup tournament hopes breathing

ICC Women's World Cup, Mumbai

The Lankan team 202 (48.4 overs): Perera 85 (99); Shorna 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

The Lankan cricket team secured four wickets in the decisive innings segment to seal a nail-biting victory over their opponents and maintain their narrow aspirations of qualifying for the World Cup semi-finals intact.

Needing a attainable target of 203 on a good batting surface in Navi Mumbai, the Bangladeshi team needed nine additional runs from the final six balls.

Nevertheless, Lankan skipper Chamari Athapaththu claimed three crucial wickets in four balls and de Silva dismissed via run-out Nahida Akter to achieve a exciting win for Sri Lanka.

The triumph – the Lankan team's maiden of the competition after three unsuccessful matches and two washed-out matches against Australia and New Zealand – pushes them tied on four match points with the Indian team and New Zealand, who confront each other on the coming Thursday.

Bangladesh, on the other hand, suffered a fifth straight setback since winning their first match against the Pakistani team and have been eliminated.

While Bangladesh got off to the ideal beginning, with Marufa Akter striking with the initial ball of the match to send back Gunaratne, they were rightfully made to pay for a subpar fielding performance.

They gifted lifelines to Perera, who was dropped three times, and Athapaththu.

Even though the Sri Lankan skipper could not capitalise, sent back lbw for 46 just one delivery after being put down by Rabeya, Hasini Perera made Bangladesh regret it.

She scored a maiden international half-century, scoring 85 from 99 deliveries and building an crucial 74-run stand fifth-wicket association with Nilakshi de Silva.

Bangladesh, spearheaded by Shorna Akter's three wickets for 27 runs, dragged themselves back in the game, with Nilakshi's dismissal in the 34th innings segment triggering a Sri Lanka collapse from 174 with four wickets down to 202 all out.

While batting second, Sri Lanka's opening bowlers Madara and Udeshika Prabodhani restricted the opposition to 23-1 in a lacklustre opening overs and they were later reduced to 44 with three wickets lost.

Sharmin Akter and Joty reconstructed their batting effort, putting on 82 runs for the fourth wicket stand before Sharmin withdrew due to injury for a resolute 64 in the 36th innings segment.

It was in favor of the chasing team heading into the last two overs, with only 12 runs necessary.

Yet, Dasanayaka dismissed Ritu Moni and allowed only three runs before the captain's dramatic spell, with Rabeya, Nahida Akter, skipper Joty and Marufa Akter all sent back as the Lankan team grabbed the triumph at the final moment.

Finally, it was a match of composure. The seasoned Athapaththu, who ushered away a few of team-mates as she got ready to bowl the final over, held hers. Bangladesh failed to.

There will be numerous doubts about Bangladesh's batting display. They possibly have been needing 270 to 280 with the Lankan team looking settled on 159-4 in the 30th over, but instead the required total was significantly less.

However, the batting side lacked purpose from the very beginning, scoring at below 2.5 runs each over during the initial phase, suffering a initial wicket loss, and finally making themselves overwhelming to achieve.

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

It required them three tries to terminate the 72-run second-wicket collaboration, with wicketkeeper Nigar Sultana not managing to grab a difficult opportunity as wicketkeeper to remove Hasini Perera on 23 runs before Athapaththu survived from a caught and bowled chance against Rabeya Khan.

The batter was spilled once more on 55 and 63 runs, the final opportunity flying directly to Jhilik at cover position, before ultimately being given out leg before wicket by Shorna as she sought to increase the tempo with teammates being dismissed around her.

Subsequently in the innings, there was furthermore a stumping chance missed and a run-out opportunity lost, while the second one was a somewhat unfortunate, with Rubya Haider deputising with the wicketkeeping gloves following an injury to the regular keeper.

Regrettably for the team, such fielding problems are not at all a one-off. They've missed 14 catches from a potential 27 opportunities at this World Cup and boast the worst catch efficiency (48.1%) of the participating teams.

They are a side who are overall heading in the correct path – they are participating in just their second ODI World Cup ultimately – but substandard fielding performance is a obvious issue which requires improvement.