Sri Lanka beats the Bangladeshi side to maintain their World Cup campaign ongoing

ICC Women's World Cup, Navi Mumbai

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

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

Sri Lanka emerge victorious by seven runs

The Lankan cricket team secured four crucial dismissals in the decisive innings segment to complete a nail-biting triumph over their opponents and preserve their narrow aspirations of making it for the tournament knockout stage alive.

Chasing a attainable target of 203 on a good batting surface in the Mumbai stadium, the Bangladeshi team required nine more runs from the final six deliveries.

Yet, Lankan skipper Athapaththu took three crucial wickets in four balls and Nilakshi de Silva dismissed via run-out Nahida to secure a exciting win for Sri Lanka.

The triumph – Sri Lanka's initial of the World Cup after three defeats and two washed-out matches against Australia and New Zealand – moves them level on four match points with the Indian team and the New Zealand side, who confront each other on the coming Thursday.

The Bangladeshi team, however, endured a fifth successive setback since securing victory in their tournament opener against the Pakistani team and have been eliminated.

Although Bangladesh made the perfect start, with Marufa Akter striking with the initial ball of the game to remove Vishmi Gunaratne, they were deservedly penalized for a disappointing fielding performance.

They offered reprieves to Perera, who was dropped multiple times, and Athapaththu.

While Athapaththu failed to take advantage, sent back lbw for 46 just one delivery after being put down by Rabeya Khan, Hasini Perera forced Bangladesh pay.

She registered a debut international 50-run score, making 85 from 99 bowls and building an significant 74-run partnership fifth-wicket collaboration with De Silva.

The Bangladeshi team, led by Shorna Akter's impressive bowling figures, pulled themselves back to the contest, with Nilakshi's wicket in the 34th over triggering a Lankan batting collapse from 174 with four wickets down to 202 all out.

In reply, the Lankan team's opening bowlers Malki Madara and Prabodhani restricted Bangladesh to 23 for one in a uninspiring opening overs and they were later diminished to 44-3.

Sharmin and Joty restored their score, adding an 82-run partnership for the fourth wicket stand before the batter left the field injured for a determined 64 in the 36th over.

It was in favor of the chasing team entering the remaining two innings segments, with only 12 additional runs needed.

Yet, Sugandika Dasanayaka sent back Ritu and gave away only three scoring runs before the captain's chaos, with Rabeya, Nahida Akter, skipper Joty and Marufa Akter all sent back as the Lankan team snatched the triumph at the very end.

Ultimately, it was a match of nerve. The very experienced Lankan captain, who ushered away a several of fellow players as she got ready to deliver the decisive over, maintained her nerve. Bangladesh did not.

There will be plenty of inquiries about Bangladesh's batting display. They might well have been pursuing around 270-280 with the Lankan team seeming comfortable on 159-4 in the 30th bowling phase, but instead the required total was significantly less.

Nevertheless, Bangladesh showed little aggression from ball one, scoring at less than 2.5 scoring rate during the opening overs, experiencing a initial wicket loss, and ultimately forcing themselves overwhelming to achieve.

But no matter what issues there are with their batting approach, if they had taken their opportunities in the fielding area, that 203-run goal would have been significantly lower.

It needed them three attempts to break the 72-run stand second-wicket association, with keeper Joty not managing to take a challenging opportunity behind the stumps to remove Hasini Perera on her score of 23 before Athapaththu was spared from a caught and bowled chance possibility against Rabeya Khan.

Perera was missed further on her score of 55 and her score of 63, the last attempt flying directly to Jhilik at cover position, before finally being given out lbw by Shorna as she tried to increase the tempo with batting partners getting out beside her.

Later in the innings, there was additionally a missed stumping and a failed run-out, even though the latter was a slightly unlucky, with Jhilik deputising with the gloves after an injury to the regular keeper.

Regrettably for the team, such fielding issues are far from a one-off. They've dropped 14 catches from a possible 27 at this World Cup and boast the lowest catching success rate (less than 50%) of the participating teams.

They are a side who are generally moving in the right direction – they are participating in only their second one-day World Cup after all – but inadequate fielding is a glaring concern which requires improvement.