Sri Lanka beats the Bangladeshi side to keep their World Cup campaign breathing

Women's Cricket World Cup, Mumbai

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

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

The Lankan side emerge victorious by seven runs

The Lankan cricket team claimed four wickets in the decisive over to seal a thrilling triumph over their opponents and preserve their narrow chances of qualifying for the tournament knockout stage intact.

Pursuing a attainable score of 203 on a batting-friendly pitch in the Mumbai stadium, the Bangladeshi team wanted nine more runs from the remaining six deliveries.

However, Sri Lanka captain Athapaththu took three crucial wickets in four bowls and de Silva ran out Nahida Akter to bring about a exciting success for Sri Lanka.

The victory – Sri Lanka's first of the tournament after three unsuccessful matches and two washed-out matches against Australia and New Zealand – pushes them tied on four tournament points with India and New Zealand, who face each other on Thursday.

Bangladesh, on the other hand, suffered a fifth straight loss since securing victory in their initial game against the Pakistani team and have been knocked out.

Even though Bangladesh got off to the ideal beginning, with Marufa striking with the first delivery of the match to remove Gunaratne, they were appropriately punished for a disappointing fielding performance.

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

Although the Sri Lankan skipper was unable to capitalise, sent back leg before wicket for 46 one ball after being dropped by Rabeya Khan, Perera forced the opposition suffer.

She registered a maiden international fifty, scoring 85 from 99 balls and building an crucial 74-run partnership fifth-wicket association with Nilakshi de Silva.

Bangladesh, led by Shorna Akter's impressive bowling figures, pulled themselves back to the contest, with Nilakshi's wicket in the 34th innings segment initiating a Lankan batting collapse from 174 with four wickets down to 202 complete.

While batting second, the Lankan team's initial pace attack Madara and Udeshika Prabodhani limited Bangladesh to 23 with one wicket down in a lacklustre opening overs and they were later brought down to 44-3.

Sharmin and Joty reconstructed their batting effort, putting on an 82-run partnership for the fourth wicket collaboration before the batter left the field injured for a stubborn 64 in the 36th bowling phase.

It was leaning toward the chasing team heading into the last two innings segments, with merely 12 more runs necessary.

Nevertheless, Sugandika Dasanayaka removed Ritu and conceded merely three scoring runs before Athapaththu's decisive intervention, with Rabeya Khan, Nahida Akter, captain Joty and Marufa Akter all dismissed as the Lankan team grabbed the triumph at the very end.

Ultimately, it was a game of nerves. The very experienced Athapaththu, who ushered away a handful of fellow players as she prepared to deliver the last over, maintained hers. Bangladesh could not.

There will be many inquiries about Bangladesh's batting performance. They could easily have been pursuing 270 or 280 with the Lankan team seeming at ease on 159 for four in the 30th over, but instead the required total was considerably smaller.

Yet, Bangladesh showed little aggression from the start, scoring at under 2.5 scoring rate during the opening overs, experiencing a initial wicket loss, and ultimately forcing themselves excessive to accomplish.

But no matter what issues there are with their batting lineup, if they had taken their catches in the field, that 203-run target target would have been significantly less.

It needed them three efforts to break the 72-run second-wicket collaboration, with wicketkeeper Nigar Sultana not managing to grab a difficult catch as wicketkeeper to send back Hasini Perera on her score of 23 before the captain was spared from a return catch opportunity against Rabeya Khan.

The batter was dropped once more on her score of 55 and 63, the last attempt going right to Rubya Haider Jhilik at cover position, before finally being given out leg before wicket by Shorna Akter as she tried to up the ante with teammates being dismissed beside her.

Later in the innings, there was also a failed stumping and a failed run-out, even though the run-out chance was a little unfortunate, with Jhilik standing in with the wicketkeeping gloves due to an fitness issue to Joty.

Regrettably for the team, such fielding issues are not at all a one-off. They've failed to catch 14 chances from a possible 27 opportunities at this tournament and have the worst fielding effectiveness (48.1%) of the participating teams.

They are a team who are generally progressing in the proper way – they are competing in only their second ODI World Cup ultimately – but inadequate fielding standards is a obvious issue which demands attention.