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

ICC Women's World Cup, Navi Mumbai

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

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

The Lankan side win by seven runs margin

The Lankan cricket team claimed four crucial dismissals in the decisive innings segment to complete a nail-biting win over Bangladesh and preserve their faint chances of making it for the World Cup semi-finals intact.

Needing a modest score of 203 on a good batting surface in the Mumbai stadium, Bangladesh required nine additional runs from the remaining six deliveries.

Nevertheless, Sri Lanka captain Chamari Athapaththu claimed three wickets in four bowls and Nilakshi de Silva dismissed via run-out Nahida Akter to achieve a dramatic success for Sri Lanka.

The win – Sri Lanka's first of the tournament after three defeats and two no-results against Australia and New Zealand – moves them level on four points with India and the New Zealand side, who meet each other on Thursday.

Bangladesh, on the other hand, endured a fifth successive defeat since winning their tournament opener against the Pakistani team and have been knocked out.

Even though Bangladesh made the perfect start, with Marufa striking with the initial ball of the game to send back Vishmi Gunaratne, they were appropriately penalized for a poor fielding display.

They gifted second chances to Hasini Perera, who was missed on three occasions, and Athapaththu.

Although Athapaththu could not take advantage, removed leg before wicket for 46 a single bowl after being missed by Rabeya Khan, Hasini Perera forced the opposition suffer.

She achieved a maiden international fifty, making 85 from 99 balls and building an crucial 74-run fifth-wicket association with De Silva.

The Bangladeshi team, led by Shorna's impressive bowling figures, dragged themselves back into the game, with Nilakshi's wicket in the 34th bowling segment causing a Lankan batting collapse from 174 for four to 202 all out.

During their chase, Sri Lanka's opening bowlers Madara and Prabodhani contained Bangladesh to 23 with one wicket down in a disappointing opening overs and they were afterwards reduced to 44 with three wickets lost.

Sharmin Akter and Joty restored their score, putting on 82 for the fourth wicket stand before the batter withdrew due to injury for a determined 64 in the 36th over.

It was advantage Bangladesh entering the remaining two innings segments, with only 12 runs necessary.

Yet, Sugandika Dasanayaka sent back Ritu and conceded only three runs before Athapaththu's dramatic spell, with Rabeya Khan, Nahida Akter, captain Joty and Marufa Akter all removed as the Lankan team seized the victory at the very end.

In the end, it was a game of composure. The very experienced Lankan captain, who ushered away a handful of team-mates as she got ready to bowl the last over, kept her composure. Bangladesh failed to.

There will be plenty of doubts about the team's batting performance. They could easily have been pursuing around 270-280 with Sri Lanka appearing comfortable on 159 with four wickets down in the 30th over, but rather the chase was much lower.

Nevertheless, the batting side showed little aggression from the start, scoring at below 2.5 runs per over during the opening overs, suffering a top-order collapse, and eventually leaving themselves overwhelming to achieve.

But whatever problems there are with their batting approach, if they had seized their opportunities in the fielding area, that 203-run objective would have been considerably smaller.

It required them three attempts to break the 72-run second-wicket collaboration, with keeper Nigar Sultana being unable to grab a tough opportunity while keeping to send back Hasini Perera on 23 runs before the captain survived from a caught and bowled chance possibility against Rabeya Khan.

Perera was spilled again on her score of 55 and 63, the final opportunity flying right to Rubya Haider Jhilik at cover, before finally being trapped leg before wicket by Shorna as she tried to increase the tempo with teammates falling beside her.

Later in the innings, there was furthermore a missed stumping and a run-out opportunity lost, even though the second one was a slightly unlucky, with Rubya Haider standing in with the gloves due to an physical problem to Joty.

Sadly for Bangladesh, such fielding problems are not at all a one-off. They've missed 14 catches from a available 27 chances at this competition and have the worst fielding effectiveness (48.1 percent) of the eight teams.

They are a side who are overall heading in the correct path – they are competing in merely their second 50-over World Cup ultimately – but inadequate fielding is a obvious problem which demands attention.