The Lankan team defeats Bangladesh to preserve their World Cup tournament hopes ongoing

ICC Women's World Cup, Mumbai

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

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

Sri Lanka emerge victorious by seven runs

The Lankan cricket team secured four wickets in the decisive over to achieve a nail-biting triumph over Bangladesh and preserve their faint aspirations of making it for the World Cup semi-finals intact.

Needing a modest target of 203 on a batting-friendly pitch in Navi Mumbai, the Bangladeshi team required nine runs from the last six deliveries.

Nevertheless, Sri Lanka captain Athapaththu claimed three important dismissals in four balls and de Silva ran out Nahida Akter to secure a dramatic success for Sri Lanka.

The triumph – Sri Lanka's maiden of the competition after three unsuccessful matches and two no-results against Australia and the Kiwi side – pushes them tied on four tournament points with India and New Zealand, who meet each other on Thursday.

The Bangladeshi team, on the other hand, suffered a fifth successive defeat since securing victory in their initial game against Pakistan and have been eliminated.

While Bangladesh got off to the excellent commencement, with Marufa taking a wicket with the first delivery of the match to remove Vishmi Gunaratne, they were deservedly punished for a poor fielding effort.

They gifted second chances to Perera, who was missed three times, and Athapaththu.

While the Sri Lankan skipper could not make it count, sent back lbw for 46 just one delivery after being missed by Rabeya Khan, Hasini Perera made Bangladesh suffer.

She achieved a debut international half-century, accumulating 85 from 99 balls and sharing an important 74-run partnership fifth-wicket with De Silva.

Bangladesh, led by Shorna's three wickets for 27 runs, dragged themselves back to the game, with De Silva's dismissal in the 34th innings segment triggering a Lankan collapse from 174 for four to 202 complete.

While batting second, Sri Lanka's opening bowlers Malki Madara and Prabodhani restricted Bangladesh to 23-1 in a uninspiring opening overs and they were later diminished to 44 for three.

Sharmin Akter and Joty reconstructed their batting effort, contributing an 82-run partnership for the fourth wicket stand before the batter withdrew due to injury for a determined 64 in the 36th bowling phase.

It was advantage Bangladesh entering the remaining two innings segments, with just 12 additional runs necessary.

Yet, Sugandika Dasanayaka sent back Ritu Moni and allowed merely three runs before Athapaththu's dramatic spell, with Rabeya Khan, Nahida Akter, captain Joty and Marufa Akter all sent back as the Lankan team grabbed the win at the death.

In the end, it was a match of nerves. The seasoned Athapaththu, who moved aside a few of team-mates as she prepared to deliver the final over, held her nerve. Bangladesh could not.

There will be plenty of inquiries about Bangladesh's batting effort. They could easily have been chasing 270 to 280 with Sri Lanka appearing settled on 159 with four wickets down in the 30th innings segment, but rather the required total was much lower.

Nevertheless, Bangladesh showed little purpose from the very beginning, making runs at under 2.5 scoring rate during the opening overs, undergoing a top-order collapse, and eventually leaving themselves excessive to do.

But no matter what difficulties there are with their batting, if they had accepted their opportunities in the field, that 203 total objective would have been substantially less.

It needed them three tries to terminate the 72-run stand second-wicket, with wicketkeeper Joty being unable to grab a difficult catch while keeping to send back Perera on 23 before the captain was spared from a caught and bowled chance chance against Rabeya.

The batter was missed once more on 55 and her score of 63, the final opportunity traveling directly to Rubya Haider Jhilik at cover, before ultimately being trapped lbw by Shorna Akter as she tried to up the ante with teammates falling near her.

Subsequently in the batting effort, there was additionally a missed stumping and a run-out opportunity lost, while the run-out chance was a little unfortunate, with Jhilik deputising with the keeping duties following an fitness issue to the regular keeper.

Unfortunately for the team, such fielding problems are nowhere near a single occurrence. They've missed 14 catches from a possible 27 opportunities at this competition and have the poorest catching success rate (48.1 percent) of the participating teams.

They are a side who are generally progressing in the proper way – they are competing in merely their second 50-over World Cup after all – but poor fielding performance is a prominent concern which demands attention.