Sri Lanka overcomes the Bangladeshi side to keep their campaign breathing

ICC Women's World Cup, Mumbai

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

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

Sri Lanka emerge victorious by seven runs

The Lankan cricket team secured four wickets in the final innings segment to seal a thrilling victory over Bangladesh and maintain their narrow hopes of making it for the tournament knockout stage alive.

Pursuing a below-par total of 203 on a favorable wicket in the Mumbai stadium, the Bangladeshi team wanted nine runs from the final six balls.

However, Sri Lanka captain Athapaththu secured three wickets in four bowls and Nilakshi de Silva ran out Nahida Akter to achieve a thrilling success for Sri Lanka.

The triumph – Sri Lanka's first of the tournament after three defeats and two no-results against Australia and the Kiwi side – pushes them level on four points with the Indian team and New Zealand, who meet each other on Thursday.

The Bangladeshi team, however, experienced a fifth consecutive defeat since winning their first match against Pakistan and have been removed from contention.

Although the Bangladeshi side made the excellent commencement, with Marufa Akter taking a wicket with the initial ball of the encounter to send back Vishmi Gunaratne, they were appropriately punished for a disappointing fielding effort.

They offered reprieves to Hasini Perera, who was spilled three times, and the Lankan captain.

Even though the Sri Lankan skipper could not make it count, removed lbw for 46 one ball after being missed by Rabeya, Hasini Perera made the opposition regret it.

She achieved a maiden international 50-run score, scoring 85 from 99 balls and contributing to an important 74-run partnership fifth-wicket association with De Silva.

The Bangladeshi team, spearheaded by Shorna's impressive bowling figures, pulled themselves back into the game, with De Silva's dismissal in the 34th bowling segment causing a Lankan collapse from 174 with four wickets down to 202 complete.

In reply, the Lankan team's opening bowlers Madara and Udeshika Prabodhani restricted the opposition to 23-1 in a disappointing initial phase and they were later brought down to 44-3.

Sharmin Akter and Nigar Sultana Joty reconstructed their score, putting on 82 for the fourth wicket before the batter left the field injured for a determined 64 in the 36th innings segment.

It was advantage the chasing team heading into the final two bowling phases, with merely 12 runs necessary.

Yet, Dasanayaka dismissed Ritu and gave away only three runs before the captain's chaos, with Rabeya, Nahida Akter, captain Joty and Marufa Akter all dismissed as Sri Lanka grabbed the victory at the death.

In the end, it was a game of nerve. The very experienced Lankan captain, who directed away a handful of team-mates as she set herself to deliver the last over, held her nerve. Bangladesh failed to.

There will be plenty of questions about the team's batting performance. They possibly have been chasing 270 to 280 with Sri Lanka looking at ease on 159-4 in the 30th innings segment, but rather the chase was considerably smaller.

Nevertheless, the batting side showed little purpose from ball one, making runs at below 2.5 runs per over during the powerplay, undergoing a early batting collapse, and eventually making themselves excessive to accomplish.

But whatever difficulties there are with their batting approach, if they had accepted their opportunities in the fielding department, that 203 total goal would have been substantially lower.

It needed them three efforts to end the 72-run stand second-wicket association, with wicketkeeper Joty failing to hold a challenging chance as wicketkeeper to send back Hasini Perera on 23 before the captain survived from a return catch opportunity against Rabeya.

Perera was spilled again on 55 and 63 runs, the latter chance traveling right to Rubya Haider Jhilik at cover, before finally being trapped leg before wicket by Shorna Akter as she sought to accelerate the scoring with teammates getting out near her.

Later in the innings, there was additionally a failed stumping and a failed run-out, even though the second one was a little unfortunate, with Rubya Haider standing in with the keeping duties due to an fitness issue to the regular keeper.

Regrettably for Bangladesh, such fielding issues are far from a isolated incident. They've dropped 14 chances from a possible 27 opportunities at this tournament and have the poorest fielding effectiveness (less than 50%) of the participating teams.

They are a side who are typically progressing in the correct path – they are participating in merely their second ODI World Cup ultimately – but substandard fielding performance is a obvious issue which needs attention.