The Lankan team overcomes the Bangladeshi side to maintain their tournament hopes ongoing

Women's Cricket World Cup, Mumbai

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

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

The Lankan side win by seven runs

The Lankan cricket team took four crucial dismissals in the last innings segment to achieve a thrilling victory over their opponents and keep their narrow hopes of making it for the World Cup semi-finals intact.

Chasing a modest total of 203 on a favorable wicket in Navi Mumbai, the Bangladeshi team wanted nine additional runs from the last six bowls.

Yet, Lankan skipper Athapaththu secured three wickets in four bowls and de Silva ran out Nahida to achieve a dramatic win for the Lankan team.

The triumph – Sri Lanka's first of the tournament after three unsuccessful matches and two abandoned games against the Australian team and New Zealand – pushes them level on four match points with the Indian team and New Zealand, who meet each other on the coming Thursday.

Bangladesh, in contrast, experienced a fifth straight defeat since winning their initial game against Pakistan and have been knocked out.

While Bangladesh got off to the ideal beginning, with Marufa Akter striking with the first delivery of the match to send back Gunaratne, they were appropriately punished for a subpar fielding display.

They provided second chances to Perera, who was dropped on three occasions, and Athapaththu.

Even though the Sri Lankan skipper was unable to capitalise, dismissed lbw for 46 just one delivery after being missed by Rabeya Khan, Perera made the opposition pay.

She achieved a debut international half-century, scoring 85 from 99 balls and building an significant 74-run partnership fifth-wicket association with De Silva.

Bangladesh, led by Shorna Akter's three wickets for 27 runs, pulled themselves back to the game, with De Silva's wicket in the 34th innings segment initiating a Lankan downfall from 174-4 to 202 total.

In reply, Sri Lanka's opening bowlers Madara and Udeshika Prabodhani limited Bangladesh to 23-1 in a uninspiring opening overs and they were later diminished to 44 for three.

Sharmin and Nigar Sultana Joty restored their batting effort, contributing an 82-run partnership for the fourth wicket stand before the batter withdrew due to injury for a stubborn 64 in the 36th innings segment.

It was in favor of Bangladesh heading into the last two bowling phases, with only 12 more runs necessary.

However, Dasanayaka removed Ritu and gave away just three scoring runs before Athapaththu's chaos, with Rabeya, Nahida Akter, skipper Joty and Marufa all removed as Sri Lanka grabbed the win at the final moment.

Ultimately, it was a game of nerves. The highly experienced Athapaththu, who moved aside a handful of teammates as she set herself to bowl the decisive over, kept her composure. The opposition could not.

There will be plenty of questions about Bangladesh's batting performance. They possibly have been chasing 270 to 280 with the Lankan team looking at ease on 159 for four in the 30th bowling phase, but in contrast the target was much lower.

Nevertheless, the batting side showed little aggression from ball one, making runs at below 2.5 scoring rate during the opening overs, experiencing a top-order collapse, and ultimately making themselves excessive to do.

But no matter what problems there are with their batting approach, if they had taken their opportunities in the fielding department, that 203 total target would have been substantially lower.

It required them three attempts to end the 72-run second-wicket, with keeper Joty failing to take a challenging opportunity while keeping to send back Hasini Perera on 23 runs before the captain was spared from a caught and bowled chance possibility against Rabeya.

The batter was spilled once more on 55 and 63 runs, the latter chance going straight to Jhilik at cover, before ultimately being dismissed leg before wicket by Shorna Akter as she tried to accelerate the scoring with teammates falling near her.

Later in the batting effort, there was additionally a stumping chance missed and a missed run-out, although the second one was a little unfortunate, with Rubya Haider standing in with the wicketkeeping gloves due to an fitness issue to the regular keeper.

Unfortunately for the team, such fielding woes are nowhere near a one-off. They've failed to catch 14 chances from a available 27 opportunities at this tournament and have the lowest catching success rate (48.1 percent) of the competing sides.

They are a squad who are generally heading in the proper way – they are participating in just their second 50-over World Cup after all – but inadequate fielding standards is a prominent issue which needs attention.