The Lankan team beats the Bangladeshi side to keep their World Cup tournament hopes alive

Women's Cricket World Cup, Mumbai

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

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

Sri Lanka emerge victorious by seven runs margin

The Lankan cricket team took four crucial dismissals in the decisive over to seal a nail-biting win over their opponents and keep their faint aspirations of making it for the World Cup semi-finals alive.

Needing a attainable target of 203 on a good batting surface in Navi Mumbai, Bangladesh required nine more runs from the last six deliveries.

However, Lankan skipper Athapaththu took three crucial wickets in four bowls and de Silva dismissed via run-out Nahida Akter to achieve a thrilling win for Sri Lanka.

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

The Bangladeshi team, on the other hand, suffered a fifth straight setback since securing victory in their first match against Pakistan and have been eliminated.

Although the Bangladeshi side got off to the excellent commencement, with Marufa taking a wicket with the opening bowl of the match to dismiss Gunaratne, they were rightfully made to pay for a poor fielding performance.

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

While Athapaththu failed to make it count, sent back lbw for 46 just one delivery after being put down by Rabeya Khan, Hasini Perera forced Bangladesh suffer.

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

Bangladesh, guided by Shorna Akter's 3-27, fought themselves back in the contest, with Nilakshi's wicket in the 34th over initiating a Lankan downfall from 174-4 to 202 complete.

While batting second, Sri Lanka's initial pace attack Madara and Udeshika Prabodhani limited the opposition to 23 with one wicket down in a lacklustre initial phase and they were afterwards brought down to 44 with three wickets lost.

Sharmin Akter and Nigar Sultana Joty reconstructed their score, contributing 82 for the fourth wicket stand before Sharmin withdrew due to injury for a resolute 64 in the 36th over.

It was leaning toward the chasing team heading into the final two innings segments, with merely 12 runs needed.

Yet, Dasanayaka sent back Ritu and gave away merely three scoring runs before the captain's chaos, with Rabeya, Nahida, captain Joty and Marufa Akter all dismissed as Sri Lanka seized the triumph at the final moment.

Finally, it was a contest of nerves. The very experienced Lankan captain, who directed away a handful of fellow players as she set herself to deliver the decisive over, kept her nerve. The opposition did not.

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

Yet, the batting side lacked intent from the start, making runs at less than 2.5 runs each over during the initial phase, suffering a top-order collapse, and finally forcing themselves excessive to accomplish.

But whatever issues there are with their batting, if they had seized their opportunities in the fielding department, that 203 total goal would have been significantly less.

It required them three tries to terminate the 72-run second-wicket association, with keeper Nigar Sultana not managing to hold a challenging opportunity behind the stumps to remove Hasini Perera on her score of 23 before Athapaththu got a reprieve from a return catch possibility against Rabeya Khan.

Perera was spilled again on 55 runs and her score of 63, the latter chance traveling right to Jhilik at cover, before finally being dismissed lbw by Shorna Akter as she tried to accelerate the scoring with batting partners being dismissed around her.

Later in the batting effort, there was additionally a stumping chance missed and a failed run-out, although the run-out chance was a somewhat unlucky, with Jhilik deputising with the gloves following an injury to Joty.

Sadly for Bangladesh, such fielding problems are not at all a single occurrence. They've missed 14 chances from a available 27 at this competition and have the poorest catching success rate (48.1 percent) of the participating teams.

They are a squad who are typically progressing in the proper way – they are participating in just their second one-day World Cup after all – but poor fielding standards is a prominent issue which requires attention.