The Lankan team overcomes the Bangladeshi side to keep their World Cup tournament hopes ongoing

Women's Cricket World Cup, Mumbai

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

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

The Lankan side emerge victorious by seven runs

Sri Lanka secured four crucial dismissals in the final innings segment to seal a thrilling win over Bangladesh and preserve their slim hopes of making it for the World Cup semi-finals ongoing.

Pursuing a below-par total of 203 on a good batting surface in the Mumbai stadium, the Bangladeshi team wanted nine more runs from the last six deliveries.

Yet, Sri Lanka captain Athapaththu claimed three important dismissals in four bowls and de Silva dismissed via run-out Nahida Akter to achieve a thrilling victory for Sri Lanka.

The triumph – the Lankan team's first of the competition after three unsuccessful matches and two washed-out matches against the Australian team and New Zealand – elevates them tied on four points with India and New Zealand, who face each other on the coming Thursday.

The Bangladeshi team, on the other hand, endured a fifth successive loss since winning their first match against Pakistan and have been knocked out.

While the Bangladeshi side made the ideal beginning, with Marufa Akter striking with the opening bowl of the match to remove Gunaratne, they were appropriately penalized for a subpar fielding performance.

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

Although the Sri Lankan skipper failed to make it count, dismissed leg before wicket for 46 one ball after being missed by Rabeya, Perera made the opposition pay.

She registered a first international fifty, scoring 85 from 99 bowls and contributing to an important 74-run fifth-wicket with Nilakshi de Silva.

Bangladesh, led by Shorna Akter's 3-27, dragged themselves back in the match, with Nilakshi's removal in the 34th over triggering a Sri Lanka downfall from 174 for four to 202 all out.

While batting second, Sri Lanka's opening bowlers Madara and Udeshika Prabodhani limited the opposition to 23 for one in a disappointing powerplay and they were afterwards reduced to 44-3.

Sharmin and Joty reconstructed their innings, contributing an 82-run partnership for the fourth wicket collaboration before Sharmin left the field injured for a determined 64 in the 36th innings segment.

It was advantage the chasing team heading into the final two innings segments, with only 12 more runs necessary.

Yet, Dasanayaka dismissed Ritu and allowed merely three scoring runs before the captain's chaos, with Rabeya, Nahida Akter, captain Joty and Marufa all dismissed as Sri Lanka grabbed the victory at the death.

Finally, it was a game of nerves. The very experienced Lankan captain, who moved aside a few of team-mates as she prepared to deliver the decisive over, kept her composure. The opposition failed to.

There will be numerous questions about Bangladesh's batting performance. They could easily have been needing 270 to 280 with Sri Lanka looking at ease on 159 for four in the 30th bowling phase, but in contrast the target was considerably smaller.

Nevertheless, the batting side showed little intent from the very beginning, accumulating runs at under 2.5 runs each over during the powerplay, experiencing a top-order collapse, and ultimately forcing themselves too much to accomplish.

But no matter what difficulties there are with their batting lineup, if they had taken their catches in the fielding department, that 203-run objective would have been substantially smaller.

It required them three attempts to terminate the 72-run partnership second-wicket, with keeper Joty not managing to grab a challenging chance as wicketkeeper to send back Perera on 23 before Athapaththu survived from a caught and bowled chance opportunity against Rabeya Khan.

The batter was dropped further on 55 runs and her score of 63, the last attempt traveling right to Jhilik at cover field, before finally being given out leg before wicket by Shorna as she attempted to up the ante with partners falling beside her.

Subsequently in the game, there was also a failed stumping and a failed run-out, while the run-out chance was a little unlucky, with Rubya Haider standing in with the gloves after an fitness issue to the regular keeper.

Regrettably for Bangladesh, such fielding problems are not at all a isolated incident. They've missed 14 catches from a potential 27 chances at this competition and have the poorest catching success rate (less than 50%) of the competing sides.

They are a side who are overall moving in the correct path – they are competing in just their second one-day World Cup after all – but substandard fielding standards is a obvious issue which requires attention.