The Lankan team defeats Bangladesh to maintain their World Cup campaign breathing

Women's Cricket World Cup, 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); Chamari Athapaththu 4-42

Sri Lanka win by seven runs

Sri Lanka secured four wickets in the last innings segment to achieve a heart-stopping win over Bangladesh and keep their slim hopes of making it for the World Cup semi-finals intact.

Needing a modest target of 203 on a good batting surface in Navi Mumbai, Bangladesh wanted nine additional runs from the final six bowls.

However, Sri Lanka captain Chamari Athapaththu secured three important dismissals in four bowls and de Silva dismissed via run-out Nahida Akter to secure a thrilling victory for Sri Lanka.

The triumph – the Lankan team's initial of the World Cup after three losses and two abandoned games against the Australian team and the Kiwi side – pushes them equal on four points with the Indian team and the New Zealand side, who face each other on the coming Thursday.

Bangladesh, however, suffered a fifth successive setback since winning their first match against the Pakistani team and have been eliminated.

While Bangladesh got off to the excellent commencement, with Marufa striking with the initial ball of the encounter to send back Vishmi Gunaratne, they were rightfully made to pay for a subpar fielding performance.

They gifted lifelines to Hasini Perera, who was dropped on three occasions, and Athapaththu.

While the Sri Lankan skipper could not make it count, removed leg before wicket for 46 just one delivery after being missed by Rabeya Khan, Perera made the opposition suffer.

She achieved a first international fifty, scoring 85 from 99 deliveries and building an significant 74-run fifth-wicket association with De Silva.

The Bangladeshi team, spearheaded by Shorna's three wickets for 27 runs, fought themselves back into the match, with De Silva's wicket in the 34th innings segment initiating a Sri Lanka collapse from 174 with four wickets down to 202 complete.

In reply, Sri Lanka's initial pace attack Malki Madara and Prabodhani contained the opposition to 23-1 in a uninspiring powerplay and they were afterwards reduced to 44 with three wickets lost.

Sharmin and Joty reconstructed their score, adding an 82-run partnership for the fourth wicket collaboration before the batter withdrew due to injury for a determined 64 in the 36th bowling phase.

It was leaning toward Bangladesh entering the remaining two overs, with just 12 more runs required.

Yet, Dasanayaka removed Ritu and allowed only three scoring runs before Athapaththu's decisive intervention, with Rabeya, Nahida, captain Joty and Marufa all removed as the Lankan team snatched the win at the final moment.

In the end, it was a game of composure. The very experienced Lankan captain, who ushered away a handful of teammates as she set herself to deliver the final over, kept hers. Bangladesh could not.

There will be plenty of doubts about Bangladesh's batting display. They could easily have been chasing 270 to 280 with the Lankan team looking comfortable on 159 with four wickets down in the 30th innings segment, but rather the required total was considerably smaller.

However, the batting side displayed insufficient purpose from the start, accumulating runs at below 2.5 scoring rate during the initial phase, experiencing a initial wicket loss, and eventually leaving themselves too much to do.

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

It needed them three attempts to end the 72-run stand second-wicket collaboration, with keeper Nigar Sultana failing to take a challenging opportunity as wicketkeeper to send back Hasini Perera on 23 before the captain was spared from a caught and bowled opportunity against Rabeya Khan.

The batter was spilled again on her score of 55 and 63 runs, the final opportunity going directly to Rubya Haider Jhilik at cover, before ultimately being dismissed leg before wicket by Shorna as she sought to accelerate the scoring with batting partners being dismissed around her.

Later in the innings, there was additionally a missed stumping and a missed run-out, even though the second one was a slightly regrettable, with Rubya Haider standing in with the keeping duties after an physical problem to the regular keeper.

Regrettably for the team, such fielding woes are not at all a isolated incident. They've dropped 14 opportunities from a available 27 at this World Cup and have the poorest catching success rate (less than 50%) of the participating teams.

They are a team who are typically moving in the proper way – they are participating in merely their second ODI World Cup in the end – but substandard fielding performance is a prominent problem which needs attention.