The Lankan team defeats the Bangladeshi side to keep their World Cup campaign alive

ICC Women's World Cup, Navi 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 claimed four crucial dismissals in the decisive innings segment to seal a nail-biting victory over their opponents and maintain their faint chances of qualifying for the World Cup semi-finals ongoing.

Chasing a modest score of 203 on a favorable wicket in the Mumbai stadium, the Bangladeshi team needed nine runs from the remaining six balls.

Yet, Sri Lanka captain Athapaththu claimed three crucial wickets in four balls and Nilakshi de Silva ran out Nahida Akter to secure a dramatic success for the Lankan team.

The victory – the Lankan team's first of the competition after three unsuccessful matches and two no-results against the Australian team and the Kiwi side – pushes them equal on four match points with the Indian team and New Zealand, who face each other on Thursday.

Bangladesh, on the other hand, experienced a fifth successive loss since securing victory in their first match against Pakistan and have been knocked out.

Even though the Bangladeshi side got off to the perfect start, with Marufa Akter striking with the first delivery of the encounter to remove Gunaratne, they were rightfully punished for a subpar fielding display.

They provided lifelines to Hasini Perera, who was spilled three times, and Athapaththu.

Although Athapaththu was unable to make it count, sent back lbw for 46 one ball after being put down by Rabeya, Perera made Bangladesh suffer.

She scored a first international fifty, accumulating 85 from 99 balls and building an crucial 74-run stand fifth-wicket collaboration with De Silva.

Bangladesh, spearheaded by Shorna Akter's 3-27, pulled themselves back to the match, with Nilakshi's dismissal in the 34th over initiating a Lankan collapse from 174 with four wickets down to 202 complete.

In reply, Sri Lanka's starting bowlers Madara and Prabodhani restricted Bangladesh to 23-1 in a disappointing opening overs and they were afterwards reduced to 44 with three wickets lost.

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

It was leaning toward the chasing team approaching the final two innings segments, with only 12 more runs needed.

Yet, Dasanayaka sent back Ritu Moni and conceded only three scoring runs before the captain's chaos, with Rabeya, Nahida, captain Joty and Marufa Akter all removed as Sri Lanka seized the triumph at the final moment.

Ultimately, it was a contest of composure. The seasoned Athapaththu, who moved aside a handful of fellow players as she prepared to bowl the last over, kept hers. The opposition failed to.

There will be numerous questions about Bangladesh's batting effort. They could easily have been pursuing 270 to 280 with the Lankan team looking at ease on 159-4 in the 30th over, but in contrast the chase was significantly less.

However, Bangladesh displayed insufficient intent from ball one, accumulating runs at below 2.5 scoring rate during the initial phase, suffering a early batting collapse, and eventually making themselves too much to achieve.

But no matter what difficulties there are with their batting approach, if they had seized their opportunities in the fielding area, that 203 total goal would have been substantially lower.

It needed them three efforts to break the 72-run partnership second-wicket association, with keeper Joty being unable to take a difficult catch behind the stumps to send back Perera on 23 runs before Athapaththu was spared from a return catch opportunity against Rabeya Khan.

The batter was missed further on 55 and her score of 63, the latter chance flying directly to Jhilik at cover position, before eventually being dismissed lbw by Shorna as she tried to accelerate the scoring with teammates being dismissed beside her.

Afterwards in the batting effort, there was additionally a stumping chance missed and a missed run-out, although the second one was a slightly unlucky, with Jhilik standing in with the wicketkeeping gloves following an fitness issue to Joty.

Sadly for Bangladesh, such fielding problems are far from a one-off. They've failed to catch 14 opportunities from a available 27 at this tournament and display the poorest catch efficiency (48.1%) of the participating teams.

They are a team who are overall moving in the right direction – they are competing in merely their second ODI World Cup after all – but poor fielding performance is a obvious issue which needs focus.