The Lankan team beats the Bangladeshi side to keep their campaign breathing

ICC Women's World Cup, Navi Mumbai

The Lankan team 202 (48.4 overs): Hasini Perera 85 (99); Shorna Akter 3-27

The Bangladeshi team 195-9 (50 overs): Joty 77 (98); Athapaththu 4-42

Sri Lanka emerge victorious by seven runs margin

The Lankan cricket team took four crucial dismissals in the final over to achieve a heart-stopping triumph over Bangladesh and preserve their faint chances of qualifying for the tournament knockout stage ongoing.

Pursuing a attainable total of 203 on a favorable wicket in the Mumbai stadium, Bangladesh needed nine more runs from the remaining six balls.

Yet, Lankan skipper Athapaththu claimed three important dismissals in four balls and de Silva dismissed via run-out Nahida Akter to bring about a dramatic win for Sri Lanka.

The triumph – the Lankan team's maiden of the World Cup after three defeats and two no-results against the Australian team and New Zealand – elevates them tied on four tournament points with the Indian team and the New Zealand side, who meet each other on Thursday.

The Bangladeshi team, however, endured a fifth successive setback since winning their initial game against Pakistan and have been eliminated.

Even though the Bangladeshi side made the ideal beginning, with Marufa striking with the initial ball of the game to send back Vishmi Gunaratne, they were appropriately punished for a subpar fielding performance.

They provided lifelines to Perera, who was missed on three occasions, and the Lankan captain.

While the Sri Lankan skipper failed to make it count, sent back lbw for 46 just one delivery after being put down by Rabeya Khan, Perera forced the opposition regret it.

She achieved a maiden international fifty, accumulating 85 from 99 balls and contributing to an crucial 74-run partnership fifth-wicket association with Nilakshi de Silva.

The Bangladeshi team, guided by Shorna Akter's three wickets for 27 runs, dragged themselves back to the game, with Nilakshi's wicket in the 34th over causing a Sri Lanka batting collapse from 174-4 to 202 complete.

During their chase, Sri Lanka's initial pace attack Madara and Udeshika Prabodhani limited Bangladesh to 23 with one wicket down in a disappointing opening overs and they were later brought down to 44 for three.

Sharmin Akter and Joty reconstructed their innings, contributing 82 runs for the fourth wicket before the batter retired hurt for a stubborn 64 in the 36th over.

It was in favor of the chasing team approaching the last two innings segments, with just 12 runs necessary.

However, Dasanayaka dismissed Ritu and gave away merely three scoring runs before the captain's dramatic spell, with Rabeya Khan, Nahida, captain Joty and Marufa Akter all sent back as the Lankan team grabbed the victory at the death.

Ultimately, it was a contest of composure. The very experienced Athapaththu, who directed away a handful of team-mates as she prepared to bowl the decisive over, kept her nerve. The opposition could not.

There will be plenty of questions about the team's batting performance. They possibly have been pursuing around 270-280 with Sri Lanka seeming settled on 159-4 in the 30th over, but instead the chase was significantly less.

Nevertheless, Bangladesh showed little purpose from the very beginning, making runs at below 2.5 runs per over during the powerplay, undergoing a initial wicket loss, and ultimately forcing themselves excessive to achieve.

But no matter what difficulties there are with their batting approach, if they had taken their catches in the field, that 203-run target objective would have been substantially less.

It took them three tries to end the 72-run second-wicket collaboration, with keeper Joty failing to take a challenging catch behind the stumps to remove Hasini Perera on 23 before Athapaththu survived from a caught and bowled chance possibility against Rabeya Khan.

The batter was spilled once more on her score of 55 and 63 runs, the latter chance traveling directly to Jhilik at cover, before eventually being dismissed lbw by Shorna as she attempted to increase the tempo with teammates falling near her.

Subsequently in the game, there was also a failed stumping and a run-out opportunity lost, even though the second one was a somewhat unlucky, with Jhilik standing in with the gloves due to an fitness issue to the regular keeper.

Regrettably for Bangladesh, such fielding problems are nowhere near a one-off. They've dropped 14 chances from a available 27 at this World Cup and display the worst catching success rate (48.1%) of the eight teams.

They are a squad who are generally heading in the proper way – they are participating in merely their second one-day World Cup in the end – but substandard fielding standards is a obvious concern which requires improvement.