The Lankan team overcomes Bangladesh to maintain their World Cup campaign ongoing

ICC Women's World Cup, Mumbai

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

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

Sri Lanka win by seven runs margin

Sri Lanka took four wickets in the final innings segment to seal a thrilling victory over their opponents and maintain their faint hopes of qualifying for the tournament knockout stage alive.

Needing a below-par target of 203 on a favorable wicket in the Mumbai stadium, the Bangladeshi team required nine more runs from the remaining six balls.

Nevertheless, Sri Lanka captain Chamari Athapaththu secured three wickets in four bowls and de Silva ran out Nahida to bring about a dramatic win for Sri Lanka.

The victory – Sri Lanka's initial of the tournament after three losses and two no-results against the Australian team and New Zealand – pushes them level on four points with India and the New Zealand side, who confront each other on the coming Thursday.

Bangladesh, however, endured a fifth consecutive defeat since securing victory in their initial game against the Pakistani team and have been eliminated.

While Bangladesh made the ideal beginning, with Marufa striking with the initial ball of the encounter to send back Gunaratne, they were appropriately penalized for a subpar fielding performance.

They provided second chances to Perera, who was missed three times, and Athapaththu.

Even though the Sri Lankan skipper was unable to take advantage, dismissed lbw for 46 one ball after being dropped by Rabeya, Hasini Perera made Bangladesh regret it.

She scored a first international half-century, accumulating 85 from 99 bowls and building an important 74-run fifth-wicket collaboration with De Silva.

Bangladesh, led by Shorna Akter's impressive bowling figures, fought themselves back in the contest, with Nilakshi's wicket in the 34th innings segment triggering a Sri Lanka collapse from 174 for four to 202 total.

During their chase, the Lankan team's initial pace attack Malki Madara and Udeshika Prabodhani restricted the opposition 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, adding an 82-run partnership for the fourth wicket collaboration before the batter retired hurt for a resolute 64 in the 36th innings segment.

It was in favor of Bangladesh entering the final two innings segments, with merely 12 additional runs needed.

Yet, Dasanayaka removed Ritu Moni and gave away just three scoring runs before Athapaththu's decisive intervention, with Rabeya, Nahida, captain Joty and Marufa all dismissed as Sri Lanka seized the victory at the very end.

In the end, it was a match of composure. The seasoned Lankan captain, who ushered away a handful of fellow players as she prepared to bowl the final over, maintained hers. The opposition failed to.

There will be plenty of doubts about the team's batting effort. They could easily have been needing around 270-280 with Sri Lanka seeming comfortable on 159 with four wickets down in the 30th innings segment, but instead the chase was considerably smaller.

Yet, Bangladesh lacked aggression from the very beginning, accumulating runs at less than 2.5 runs each over during the initial phase, suffering a early batting collapse, and eventually leaving themselves too much to do.

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

It required them three efforts to break the 72-run stand second-wicket collaboration, with keeper Nigar Sultana failing to take a challenging opportunity behind the stumps to remove Perera on her score of 23 before the captain got a reprieve from a caught and bowled chance opportunity against Rabeya.

The batter was missed further on her score of 55 and 63 runs, the latter chance flying right to Rubya Haider Jhilik at cover position, before eventually being dismissed leg before wicket by Shorna as she attempted to increase the tempo with partners getting out near her.

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

Regrettably for the team, such fielding problems are nowhere near a isolated incident. They've missed 14 chances from a potential 27 at this World Cup and have the lowest fielding effectiveness (48.1 percent) of the participating teams.

They are a team who are overall heading in the right direction – they are participating in merely their second ODI World Cup after all – but poor fielding standards is a glaring concern which needs attention.