The Lankan team beats Bangladesh to maintain their World Cup tournament hopes breathing

Women's Cricket World Cup, Mumbai

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

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

The Lankan side win by seven runs

The Lankan cricket team claimed four crucial dismissals in the final innings segment to complete a nail-biting win over their opponents and maintain their slim chances of qualifying for the tournament knockout stage alive.

Needing a attainable target of 203 on a favorable wicket in the Mumbai stadium, the Bangladeshi team needed nine more runs from the final six deliveries.

Yet, Lankan skipper Athapaththu took three crucial wickets in four bowls and de Silva ran out Nahida Akter to secure a dramatic victory for Sri Lanka.

The victory – the Lankan team's initial of the tournament after three unsuccessful matches and two no-results against Australia and New Zealand – pushes them equal on four match points with India and New Zealand, who meet each other on the coming Thursday.

The Bangladeshi team, in contrast, suffered a fifth consecutive loss since securing victory in their initial game against the Pakistani team and have been removed from contention.

Even though Bangladesh made the ideal beginning, with Marufa Akter taking a wicket with the first delivery of the game to dismiss Gunaratne, they were rightfully punished for a disappointing fielding display.

They provided lifelines to Perera, who was spilled on three occasions, and the Lankan captain.

Even though Athapaththu could not capitalise, sent back leg before wicket for 46 one ball after being put down by Rabeya, Perera made the opposition suffer.

She registered a first international fifty, scoring 85 from 99 bowls and sharing an crucial 74-run partnership fifth-wicket with Nilakshi de Silva.

The Bangladeshi team, guided by Shorna's impressive bowling figures, fought themselves back to the match, with De Silva's removal in the 34th bowling 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 Bangladesh to 23-1 in a lacklustre powerplay and they were afterwards brought down to 44-3.

Sharmin Akter and Nigar Sultana Joty rebuilt their score, putting on an 82-run partnership for the fourth wicket stand before Sharmin retired hurt for a determined 64 in the 36th over.

It was leaning toward Bangladesh heading into the final two bowling phases, with just 12 additional runs needed.

However, Sugandika Dasanayaka dismissed Ritu Moni and allowed merely three scoring runs before Athapaththu's chaos, with Rabeya Khan, Nahida, skipper Joty and Marufa Akter all sent back as the Lankan team seized the win at the death.

In the end, it was a match of nerves. The seasoned Lankan captain, who directed away a several of teammates as she prepared to bowl the decisive over, kept hers. The opposition could not.

There will be many questions about the team's batting display. They might well have been chasing around 270-280 with Sri Lanka seeming settled on 159-4 in the 30th innings segment, but instead the chase was considerably smaller.

Nevertheless, Bangladesh lacked purpose from the very beginning, making runs at below 2.5 runs each over during the powerplay, experiencing a initial wicket loss, and finally leaving themselves overwhelming to achieve.

But no matter what issues there are with their batting, if they had seized their catches in the fielding area, that 203-run target would have been significantly smaller.

It needed them three attempts to end the 72-run partnership second-wicket, with keeper Joty not managing to grab a tough catch as wicketkeeper to remove Perera on 23 runs before the captain survived from a caught and bowled chance possibility against Rabeya Khan.

The batter was missed further on her score of 55 and her score of 63, the last attempt flying straight to Rubya Haider Jhilik at cover field, before ultimately being given out lbw by Shorna as she tried to increase the tempo with partners being dismissed beside her.

Afterwards in the innings, there was also a failed stumping and a failed run-out, while the run-out chance was a little regrettable, with Jhilik substituting with the wicketkeeping gloves after an fitness issue to the regular keeper.

Unfortunately for Bangladesh, such fielding problems are nowhere near a one-off. They've failed to catch 14 catches from a available 27 chances at this tournament and display the lowest catch efficiency (48.1%) of the participating teams.

They are a side who are generally heading in the right direction – they are participating in just their second ODI World Cup in the end – but poor fielding is a obvious concern which demands focus.