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

Women's Cricket World Cup, Mumbai

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

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

Sri Lanka emerge victorious by seven runs margin

Sri Lanka secured four crucial dismissals in the final innings segment to achieve a thrilling win over their opponents and keep their narrow hopes of qualifying for the tournament knockout stage intact.

Pursuing a modest score of 203 on a favorable wicket in Navi Mumbai, Bangladesh needed nine additional runs from the final six bowls.

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

The triumph – Sri Lanka's maiden of the World Cup after three defeats and two no-results against the Australian team and New Zealand – elevates them tied on four points with the Indian team and New Zealand, who face each other on Thursday.

The Bangladeshi team, in contrast, suffered a fifth consecutive setback since winning their initial game against the Pakistani team and have been knocked out.

Even though the Bangladeshi side made the ideal beginning, with Marufa Akter striking with the initial ball of the game to remove Gunaratne, they were deservedly made to pay for a subpar fielding display.

They provided lifelines to Hasini Perera, who was dropped three times, and the Lankan captain.

While Athapaththu could not capitalise, dismissed lbw for 46 just one delivery after being missed by Rabeya Khan, Hasini Perera forced the opposition regret it.

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

The Bangladeshi team, led by Shorna's three wickets for 27 runs, fought themselves back into the match, with Nilakshi's removal in the 34th bowling segment initiating a Sri Lanka collapse from 174 with four wickets down to 202 complete.

In reply, the Lankan team's initial pace attack Malki Madara and Prabodhani limited Bangladesh to 23 for one in a lacklustre initial phase and they were subsequently diminished to 44-3.

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

It was in favor of the chasing team heading into the remaining two overs, with just 12 more runs needed.

However, Sugandika Dasanayaka dismissed Ritu and conceded just three scoring runs before the captain's dramatic spell, with Rabeya Khan, Nahida Akter, skipper Joty and Marufa Akter all dismissed as the Lankan team grabbed the win at the final moment.

Ultimately, it was a game of composure. The highly experienced Athapaththu, who moved aside a several of fellow players as she got ready to deliver the last over, maintained hers. Bangladesh failed to.

There will be numerous questions about Bangladesh's batting performance. They possibly have been needing around 270-280 with the Lankan team looking comfortable on 159 with four wickets down in the 30th innings segment, but rather the target was considerably smaller.

Yet, the batting side displayed insufficient intent from the start, scoring at below 2.5 runs each over during the opening overs, suffering a early batting collapse, and eventually making themselves too much to do.

But whatever difficulties there are with their batting, if they had accepted their chances in the fielding department, that 203-run target target would have been substantially smaller.

It required them three efforts to break the 72-run stand second-wicket collaboration, with wicketkeeper Joty not managing to hold a difficult opportunity as wicketkeeper to dismiss Perera on her score of 23 before Athapaththu survived from a caught and bowled chance opportunity against Rabeya.

Perera was spilled once more on 55 runs and her score of 63, the latter chance going directly to Rubya Haider Jhilik at cover field, before ultimately being dismissed lbw by Shorna Akter as she attempted to up the ante with partners being dismissed around her.

Subsequently in the game, there was furthermore a stumping chance missed and a run-out opportunity lost, although the run-out chance was a slightly regrettable, with Jhilik substituting with the wicketkeeping gloves due to an physical problem to Joty.

Regrettably for the team, such fielding issues are nowhere near a isolated incident. They've dropped 14 opportunities from a possible 27 chances at this competition and boast the lowest catch efficiency (48.1%) of the participating teams.

They are a side who are typically progressing in the correct path – they are competing in merely their second ODI World Cup ultimately – but substandard fielding performance is a obvious issue which needs improvement.