The Lankan team beats Bangladesh to keep their World Cup campaign ongoing

Women's Cricket World Cup, Mumbai

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

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

Sri Lanka emerge victorious by seven runs

The Lankan cricket team secured four wickets in the last innings segment to complete a nail-biting victory over Bangladesh and maintain their slim chances of making it for the tournament knockout stage intact.

Pursuing a attainable target of 203 on a batting-friendly pitch in Navi Mumbai, Bangladesh needed nine additional runs from the last six bowls.

However, Sri Lanka captain Athapaththu secured three crucial wickets in four deliveries and Nilakshi de Silva dismissed via run-out Nahida to bring about a dramatic victory for the Lankan team.

The win – Sri Lanka's maiden of the World Cup after three losses and two washed-out matches against the Australian team and the Kiwi side – moves them level on four match points with the Indian team and New Zealand, who face each other on the coming Thursday.

Bangladesh, however, endured a fifth successive loss since winning their initial game against Pakistan and have been removed from contention.

Although the Bangladeshi side got off to the ideal beginning, with Marufa striking with the first delivery of the match to remove Vishmi Gunaratne, they were deservedly punished for a subpar fielding performance.

They gifted lifelines to Perera, who was missed multiple times, and Athapaththu.

Even though Athapaththu failed to make it count, removed lbw for 46 just one delivery after being missed by Rabeya, Perera forced Bangladesh suffer.

She achieved a maiden international half-century, accumulating 85 from 99 balls and contributing to an important 74-run fifth-wicket collaboration with De Silva.

The Bangladeshi team, led by Shorna's three wickets for 27 runs, dragged themselves back into the match, with De Silva's dismissal in the 34th over triggering a Lankan collapse from 174-4 to 202 total.

In reply, the Lankan team's opening bowlers Madara and Prabodhani contained Bangladesh to 23 for one in a uninspiring powerplay and they were afterwards brought down to 44 for three.

Sharmin Akter and Joty rebuilt their innings, contributing 82 runs for the fourth wicket stand before the batter retired hurt for a determined 64 in the 36th bowling phase.

It was leaning toward the chasing team entering the remaining two innings segments, with only 12 runs needed.

Nevertheless, Sugandika Dasanayaka dismissed Ritu and conceded only three runs before Athapaththu's chaos, with Rabeya, Nahida Akter, captain Joty and Marufa all sent back as Sri Lanka seized the win at the final moment.

In the end, it was a contest of nerves. The seasoned Athapaththu, who moved aside a handful of teammates as she got ready to bowl the decisive over, held her nerve. Bangladesh failed to.

There will be many questions about the team's batting display. They might well have been chasing 270 or 280 with the Lankan team appearing comfortable on 159-4 in the 30th innings segment, but rather the target was much lower.

Nevertheless, the batting side lacked intent from the start, accumulating runs at under 2.5 runs each over during the powerplay, experiencing a top-order collapse, and ultimately forcing themselves too much to do.

But no matter what issues there are with their batting lineup, if they had seized their chances in the field, that 203-run objective would have been substantially less.

It required them three efforts to terminate the 72-run partnership second-wicket, with keeper Nigar Sultana failing to grab a challenging catch behind the stumps to remove Perera on 23 before Athapaththu got a reprieve from a caught and bowled chance chance against Rabeya Khan.

The batter was dropped further on her score of 55 and 63, the latter chance going straight to Rubya Haider Jhilik at cover field, before finally being dismissed leg before wicket by Shorna Akter as she sought to accelerate the scoring with batting partners getting out beside her.

Subsequently in the batting effort, there was furthermore a missed stumping and a failed run-out, even though the second one was a slightly unlucky, with Jhilik standing in with the gloves following an physical problem to Joty.

Regrettably for the team, such fielding issues are far from a single occurrence. They've missed 14 chances from a possible 27 opportunities at this tournament and have the worst catching success rate (48.1%) of the competing sides.

They are a side who are generally progressing in the correct path – they are playing in just their second one-day World Cup in the end – but substandard fielding performance is a glaring problem which needs improvement.