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

Women's Cricket World Cup, Navi Mumbai

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

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

The Lankan side emerge victorious by seven runs margin

The Lankan cricket team claimed four wickets in the decisive innings segment to complete a nail-biting triumph over Bangladesh and maintain their narrow chances of making it for the World Cup semi-finals alive.

Needing a modest target of 203 on a batting-friendly pitch in the Mumbai stadium, the Bangladeshi team wanted nine additional runs from the final six balls.

Yet, Lankan skipper Athapaththu secured three crucial wickets in four balls and Nilakshi de Silva dismissed via run-out Nahida Akter to secure a thrilling win for the Lankan team.

The win – Sri Lanka's first of the competition after three defeats and two abandoned games against Australia and New Zealand – pushes them equal on four match points with the Indian team and the New Zealand side, who face each other on the coming Thursday.

Bangladesh, on the other hand, experienced a fifth successive setback since winning their first match against Pakistan and have been removed from contention.

While the Bangladeshi side made the ideal beginning, with Marufa Akter taking a wicket with the opening bowl of the match to remove Vishmi Gunaratne, they were deservedly punished for a subpar fielding effort.

They provided reprieves to Hasini Perera, who was spilled on three occasions, and Athapaththu.

While Athapaththu was unable to make it count, removed lbw for 46 a single bowl after being put down by Rabeya, Hasini Perera made Bangladesh suffer.

She achieved a debut international fifty, making 85 from 99 deliveries and contributing to an significant 74-run stand fifth-wicket collaboration with Nilakshi de Silva.

Bangladesh, spearheaded by Shorna's 3-27, dragged themselves back to the game, with De Silva's removal in the 34th innings segment causing a Lankan downfall from 174-4 to 202 complete.

During their chase, Sri Lanka's opening bowlers Madara and Prabodhani restricted Bangladesh to 23 with one wicket down in a uninspiring opening overs and they were afterwards brought down to 44-3.

Sharmin and Joty restored their innings, putting on 82 runs for the fourth wicket stand before the batter left the field injured for a resolute 64 in the 36th bowling phase.

It was leaning toward Bangladesh entering the final two innings segments, with just 12 runs necessary.

Nevertheless, Sugandika Dasanayaka sent back Ritu and conceded just three runs before the captain's decisive intervention, with Rabeya, Nahida, skipper Joty and Marufa all sent back as the Lankan team snatched the win at the final moment.

Ultimately, it was a game of nerve. The seasoned Athapaththu, who moved aside a handful of teammates as she got ready to deliver the decisive over, held hers. The opposition failed to.

There will be numerous inquiries about Bangladesh's batting display. They might well have been chasing around 270-280 with Sri Lanka looking comfortable on 159 for four in the 30th innings segment, but in contrast the chase was considerably smaller.

However, the batting side showed little aggression from ball one, scoring at under 2.5 scoring rate during the opening overs, suffering a top-order collapse, and eventually forcing themselves overwhelming to accomplish.

But whatever difficulties there are with their batting lineup, if they had taken their chances in the fielding area, that 203 total objective would have been substantially less.

It required them three attempts to terminate the 72-run partnership second-wicket association, with wicketkeeper Nigar Sultana not managing to take a challenging chance as wicketkeeper to remove Hasini Perera on her score of 23 before the captain survived from a return catch chance against Rabeya.

Perera was dropped again on 55 and 63 runs, the latter chance flying right to Rubya Haider Jhilik at cover position, before finally being trapped lbw by Shorna as she tried to increase the tempo with partners falling around her.

Afterwards in the innings, there was additionally a missed stumping and a failed run-out, even though the latter was a little regrettable, with Rubya Haider substituting with the gloves due to an fitness issue to Joty.

Unfortunately for the team, such fielding issues are not at all a one-off. They've failed to catch 14 catches from a potential 27 opportunities at this competition and display the lowest fielding effectiveness (less than 50%) of the eight teams.

They are a team who are typically heading in the proper way – they are participating in just their second 50-over World Cup in the end – but substandard fielding standards is a glaring concern which needs focus.