Sri Lanka beats the Bangladeshi side to keep their World Cup campaign breathing

ICC Women's World Cup, Mumbai

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

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

The Lankan side win by seven runs margin

The Lankan cricket team claimed four wickets in the decisive innings segment to achieve a heart-stopping win over their opponents and preserve their faint chances of making it for the tournament knockout stage alive.

Pursuing a below-par target of 203 on a favorable wicket in the Mumbai stadium, Bangladesh wanted nine runs from the remaining six deliveries.

Yet, Sri Lanka captain Chamari Athapaththu claimed three important dismissals in four balls and Nilakshi de Silva ran out Nahida to secure a thrilling win for the Lankan team.

The triumph – Sri Lanka's maiden of the World Cup after three losses and two abandoned games against the Australian team and New Zealand – elevates them equal on four points with India and New Zealand, who confront each other on the coming Thursday.

Bangladesh, in contrast, experienced a fifth successive defeat since winning their first match against the Pakistani team and have been removed from contention.

While Bangladesh made the perfect start, with Marufa Akter taking a wicket with the initial ball of the encounter to remove Vishmi Gunaratne, they were appropriately punished for a poor fielding performance.

They offered lifelines to Perera, who was dropped three times, and the Lankan captain.

Although Athapaththu was unable to take advantage, sent back leg before wicket for 46 one ball after being dropped by Rabeya Khan, Hasini Perera made the opposition regret it.

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

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

In reply, the Lankan team's initial pace attack Malki Madara and Udeshika Prabodhani contained Bangladesh to 23-1 in a uninspiring initial phase and they were subsequently brought down to 44 with three wickets lost.

Sharmin Akter and Nigar Sultana Joty rebuilt their score, putting on 82 for the fourth wicket stand before the batter retired hurt for a determined 64 in the 36th bowling phase.

It was advantage Bangladesh heading into the remaining two innings segments, with merely 12 additional runs required.

Yet, Dasanayaka dismissed Ritu and conceded only three scoring runs before the captain's chaos, with Rabeya, Nahida Akter, skipper Joty and Marufa all removed as the Lankan team grabbed the win at the final moment.

In the end, it was a match of nerves. The seasoned Athapaththu, who directed away a handful of fellow players as she set herself to deliver the decisive over, maintained hers. Bangladesh could not.

There will be plenty of doubts about the team's batting performance. They could easily have been pursuing 270 or 280 with Sri Lanka looking settled on 159 with four wickets down in the 30th innings segment, but rather the chase was significantly less.

However, Bangladesh displayed insufficient aggression from ball one, making runs at less than 2.5 runs per over during the powerplay, undergoing a top-order collapse, and ultimately leaving themselves too much to accomplish.

But no matter what issues there are with their batting, if they had taken their opportunities in the fielding department, that 203 total target would have been substantially lower.

It required them three attempts to break the 72-run stand second-wicket, with keeper Joty not managing to take a challenging catch while keeping to remove Hasini Perera on her score of 23 before Athapaththu got a reprieve from a return catch opportunity against Rabeya Khan.

Perera was dropped again on her score of 55 and her score of 63, the final opportunity flying straight to Jhilik at cover, before eventually being given out leg before wicket by Shorna as she sought to accelerate the scoring with partners falling beside her.

Later in the game, there was also a missed stumping and a run-out opportunity lost, while the latter was a somewhat unlucky, with Rubya Haider deputising with the keeping duties following an injury to Joty.

Sadly for the team, such fielding problems are nowhere near a single occurrence. They've dropped 14 chances from a possible 27 at this World Cup and display the worst catch efficiency (48.1 percent) of the eight teams.

They are a squad who are generally progressing in the proper way – they are participating in only their second one-day World Cup in the end – but inadequate fielding standards is a obvious problem which demands focus.