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

Women's Cricket World Cup, Navi Mumbai

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

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

Sri Lanka win by seven runs margin

The Lankan cricket team secured four crucial dismissals in the final innings segment to complete a nail-biting victory over Bangladesh and preserve their narrow hopes of making it for the World Cup semi-finals ongoing.

Needing a modest score of 203 on a favorable wicket in the Mumbai stadium, Bangladesh needed nine runs from the last six bowls.

Nevertheless, Sri Lanka captain Athapaththu took three important dismissals in four deliveries and Nilakshi de Silva dismissed via run-out Nahida to achieve a dramatic win for Sri Lanka.

The victory – the Lankan team's initial of the tournament after three defeats and two washed-out matches against the Australian team and New Zealand – pushes them tied on four tournament points with India and the New Zealand side, who meet each other on Thursday.

The Bangladeshi team, however, suffered a fifth successive setback since winning their initial game against the Pakistani team and have been knocked out.

Although Bangladesh got off to the excellent commencement, with Marufa Akter striking with the first delivery of the encounter to send back Gunaratne, they were rightfully made to pay for a subpar fielding display.

They gifted second chances to Hasini Perera, who was dropped three times, and Athapaththu.

Although the Sri Lankan skipper failed to make it count, dismissed leg before wicket for 46 just one delivery after being missed by Rabeya Khan, Hasini Perera forced the opposition pay.

She registered a first international fifty, accumulating 85 from 99 deliveries and building an crucial 74-run fifth-wicket collaboration with De Silva.

The Bangladeshi team, guided by Shorna's three wickets for 27 runs, dragged themselves back to the contest, with Nilakshi's removal in the 34th bowling segment causing a Sri Lanka downfall from 174 for four to 202 total.

During their chase, the Lankan team's initial pace attack Madara and Udeshika Prabodhani limited the opposition to 23-1 in a lacklustre opening overs and they were subsequently reduced to 44 with three wickets lost.

Sharmin Akter and Joty reconstructed their batting effort, adding an 82-run partnership for the fourth wicket stand before the batter retired hurt for a stubborn 64 in the 36th bowling phase.

It was leaning toward Bangladesh approaching the last two overs, with merely 12 runs required.

Nevertheless, Dasanayaka dismissed Ritu Moni and gave away just three scoring runs before the captain's chaos, with Rabeya Khan, Nahida Akter, captain Joty and Marufa Akter all dismissed as Sri Lanka snatched the win at the final moment.

In the end, it was a game of composure. The seasoned Lankan captain, who ushered away a handful of team-mates as she prepared to deliver the final over, kept her nerve. The opposition failed to.

There will be plenty of questions about the team's batting display. They possibly have been pursuing 270 to 280 with the Lankan team seeming comfortable on 159 for four in the 30th innings segment, but instead the target was much lower.

Yet, the batting side showed little intent from the very beginning, accumulating runs at below 2.5 runs each over during the opening overs, suffering a early batting collapse, and eventually making themselves too much to do.

But whatever issues there are with their batting lineup, if they had accepted their opportunities in the fielding department, that 203 total target would have been considerably lower.

It took them three attempts to end the 72-run stand second-wicket collaboration, with wicketkeeper Nigar Sultana failing to take a tough chance as wicketkeeper to remove Hasini Perera on 23 runs before the captain got a reprieve from a return catch possibility against Rabeya.

The batter was missed once more on 55 and 63 runs, the last attempt going right to Jhilik at cover, before ultimately being dismissed leg before wicket by Shorna as she attempted to increase the tempo with partners being dismissed beside her.

Subsequently in the batting effort, there was also a missed stumping and a missed run-out, while the latter was a somewhat unlucky, with Jhilik standing in with the keeping duties due to an injury to the regular keeper.

Sadly for Bangladesh, such fielding issues are not at all a isolated incident. They've dropped 14 opportunities from a possible 27 chances at this World Cup and have the poorest catching success rate (48.1 percent) of the participating teams.

They are a squad who are overall progressing in the correct path – they are playing in merely their second one-day World Cup after all – but substandard fielding performance is a prominent issue which requires attention.