Sri Lanka overcomes the Bangladeshi side to maintain their campaign breathing

Women's Cricket World Cup, Navi 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

Sri Lanka win by seven runs margin

The Lankan cricket team secured four wickets in the final innings segment to complete a nail-biting triumph over Bangladesh and keep their narrow chances of qualifying for the tournament knockout stage alive.

Needing a below-par target of 203 on a favorable wicket in Navi Mumbai, Bangladesh needed nine runs from the final six balls.

Yet, Lankan skipper Chamari Athapaththu took three crucial wickets in four balls and de Silva dismissed via run-out Nahida Akter to bring about a dramatic success for the Lankan team.

The triumph – Sri Lanka's initial of the competition after three defeats and two abandoned games against the Australian team and New Zealand – pushes them tied on four points with the Indian team and New Zealand, who confront each other on the coming Thursday.

Bangladesh, on the other hand, experienced a fifth consecutive setback since securing victory in their tournament opener against the Pakistani team and have been eliminated.

While the Bangladeshi side got off to the excellent commencement, with Marufa taking a wicket with the initial ball of the game to send back Vishmi Gunaratne, they were deservedly penalized for a subpar fielding performance.

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

While the Sri Lankan skipper failed to capitalise, removed leg before wicket for 46 just one delivery after being dropped by Rabeya, Hasini Perera forced Bangladesh regret it.

She achieved a debut international half-century, accumulating 85 from 99 balls and contributing to an important 74-run stand fifth-wicket collaboration with De Silva.

The Bangladeshi team, spearheaded by Shorna's impressive bowling figures, fought themselves back to the match, with De Silva's dismissal in the 34th bowling segment causing a Sri Lanka collapse from 174 with four wickets down to 202 total.

While batting second, Sri Lanka's initial pace attack Madara and Udeshika Prabodhani restricted the opposition to 23-1 in a disappointing powerplay and they were later brought down to 44 with three wickets lost.

Sharmin and Nigar Sultana Joty rebuilt their innings, putting on 82 for the fourth wicket stand before Sharmin left the field injured for a determined 64 in the 36th bowling phase.

It was in favor of Bangladesh heading into the remaining two overs, with only 12 more runs necessary.

Nevertheless, Sugandika Dasanayaka sent back Ritu Moni and gave away merely three runs before Athapaththu's dramatic spell, with Rabeya Khan, Nahida Akter, captain Joty and Marufa all sent back as Sri Lanka seized the win at the very end.

Ultimately, it was a match of nerves. The very experienced Lankan captain, who ushered away a several of team-mates as she got ready to bowl the decisive over, kept hers. The opposition did not.

There will be many questions about the team's batting display. They could easily have been chasing 270 or 280 with Sri Lanka looking comfortable on 159-4 in the 30th over, but rather the target was significantly less.

However, the batting side showed little purpose from the start, accumulating runs at below 2.5 scoring rate during the opening overs, suffering a initial wicket loss, and eventually leaving themselves overwhelming to accomplish.

But whatever difficulties there are with their batting lineup, if they had taken their chances in the field, that 203-run goal would have been considerably less.

It needed them three attempts to break the 72-run stand second-wicket, with keeper Nigar Sultana being unable to hold a tough catch behind the stumps to dismiss Hasini Perera on 23 before the captain got a reprieve from a caught and bowled possibility against Rabeya Khan.

Perera was dropped again on 55 and her score of 63, the final opportunity flying straight to Rubya Haider Jhilik at cover field, before eventually being given out lbw by Shorna as she tried to increase the tempo with batting partners being dismissed near her.

Afterwards in the innings, there was additionally a missed stumping and a failed run-out, although the latter was a little unlucky, with Jhilik standing in with the keeping duties due to an fitness issue to Joty.

Sadly for the team, such fielding problems are nowhere near a single occurrence. They've dropped 14 catches from a available 27 at this tournament and boast the lowest catch efficiency (less than 50%) of the competing sides.

They are a team who are overall heading in the proper way – they are playing in merely their second ODI World Cup after all – but substandard fielding standards is a glaring issue which requires improvement.