The Lankan team beats the Bangladeshi side to preserve their tournament hopes ongoing

ICC Women's World Cup, Mumbai

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

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

Sri Lanka emerge victorious by seven runs

Sri Lanka secured four wickets in the final innings segment to achieve a nail-biting victory over Bangladesh and preserve their faint hopes of making it for the tournament knockout stage ongoing.

Needing a below-par total of 203 on a good batting surface in the Mumbai stadium, Bangladesh needed nine additional runs from the final six deliveries.

Yet, Lankan skipper Athapaththu claimed three crucial wickets in four deliveries and de Silva dismissed via run-out Nahida Akter to bring about a thrilling victory for the Lankan team.

The win – the Lankan team's maiden of the competition after three losses and two no-results against Australia and the Kiwi side – moves them level on four points with the Indian team and New Zealand, who meet each other on the coming Thursday.

Bangladesh, however, suffered a fifth straight defeat since securing victory in their tournament opener against the Pakistani team and have been removed from contention.

Even though Bangladesh made the excellent commencement, with Marufa taking a wicket with the initial ball of the encounter to dismiss Gunaratne, they were rightfully punished for a subpar fielding performance.

They offered lifelines to Perera, who was dropped on three occasions, and Athapaththu.

While the Sri Lankan skipper was unable to make it count, removed leg before wicket for 46 one ball after being put down by Rabeya Khan, Perera made Bangladesh pay.

She scored a debut international fifty, scoring 85 from 99 deliveries and building an crucial 74-run partnership fifth-wicket collaboration with Nilakshi de Silva.

Bangladesh, led by Shorna's impressive bowling figures, pulled themselves back in the contest, with Nilakshi's wicket in the 34th over triggering a Lankan downfall from 174-4 to 202 all out.

While batting second, Sri Lanka's opening bowlers Madara and Udeshika Prabodhani contained Bangladesh to 23-1 in a lacklustre initial phase and they were later diminished to 44-3.

Sharmin Akter and Nigar Sultana Joty restored their innings, contributing 82 for the fourth wicket collaboration before the batter retired hurt for a resolute 64 in the 36th over.

It was advantage the chasing team heading into the last two overs, with just 12 runs required.

Yet, Dasanayaka removed Ritu and gave away just three runs before Athapaththu's dramatic spell, with Rabeya Khan, Nahida Akter, captain Joty and Marufa all removed as the Lankan team snatched the win at the very end.

In the end, it was a contest of composure. The highly experienced Lankan captain, who directed away a several of teammates as she got ready to bowl the decisive over, held her composure. Bangladesh failed to.

There will be many doubts about Bangladesh's batting display. They could easily have been pursuing 270 or 280 with the Lankan team looking comfortable on 159 with four wickets down in the 30th over, but rather the target was much lower.

However, the batting side lacked purpose from ball one, accumulating runs at less than 2.5 runs each over during the powerplay, undergoing a early batting collapse, and finally making themselves too much to achieve.

But whatever issues there are with their batting lineup, if they had taken their chances in the field, that 203-run objective would have been significantly smaller.

It needed them three efforts to break the 72-run second-wicket, with wicketkeeper Joty failing to hold a challenging opportunity while keeping to remove Perera on 23 before Athapaththu was spared from a caught and bowled chance possibility against Rabeya.

The batter was spilled again on 55 runs and 63 runs, the final opportunity traveling straight to Jhilik at cover field, before ultimately being trapped lbw by Shorna as she tried to accelerate the scoring with batting partners being dismissed near her.

Afterwards in the innings, there was also a stumping chance missed and a run-out opportunity lost, although the latter was a somewhat regrettable, with Rubya Haider standing in with the wicketkeeping gloves after an physical problem to Joty.

Unfortunately for Bangladesh, such fielding problems are not at all a single occurrence. They've missed 14 catches from a available 27 opportunities at this World Cup and boast the lowest fielding effectiveness (less than 50%) of the competing sides.

They are a side who are typically moving in the correct path – they are competing in merely their second one-day World Cup ultimately – but substandard fielding performance is a obvious concern which needs focus.