The Lankan team defeats Bangladesh to preserve their campaign breathing

Women's Cricket World Cup, Mumbai

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

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

The Lankan side win by seven runs

The Lankan cricket team claimed four crucial dismissals in the last innings segment to seal a heart-stopping win over Bangladesh and preserve their narrow hopes of making it for the World Cup semi-finals intact.

Chasing a below-par total of 203 on a favorable wicket in Navi Mumbai, the Bangladeshi team needed nine runs from the last six balls.

However, Lankan skipper Chamari Athapaththu claimed three wickets in four balls and de Silva ran out Nahida Akter to achieve a exciting victory for Sri Lanka.

The win – Sri Lanka's maiden of the competition after three defeats and two no-results against Australia and New Zealand – elevates them tied on four match points with India and New Zealand, who confront each other on the coming Thursday.

The Bangladeshi team, however, suffered a fifth straight loss since securing victory in their tournament opener against Pakistan and have been removed from contention.

Although the Bangladeshi side made the excellent commencement, with Marufa striking with the opening bowl of the encounter to dismiss Gunaratne, they were appropriately punished for a poor fielding effort.

They offered second chances to Hasini Perera, who was missed on three occasions, and the Lankan captain.

Even though Athapaththu was unable to make it count, removed leg before wicket for 46 one ball after being missed by Rabeya Khan, Perera forced the opposition pay.

She achieved a maiden international 50-run score, accumulating 85 from 99 bowls and sharing an significant 74-run partnership fifth-wicket collaboration with De Silva.

The Bangladeshi team, spearheaded by Shorna Akter's three wickets for 27 runs, dragged themselves back in the match, with De Silva's wicket in the 34th bowling segment triggering a Lankan batting collapse from 174 for four to 202 complete.

While batting second, the Lankan team's initial pace attack Madara and Prabodhani limited the opposition to 23 for one in a uninspiring opening overs and they were subsequently reduced to 44-3.

Sharmin and Nigar Sultana Joty reconstructed their batting effort, putting on 82 runs for the fourth wicket before the batter withdrew due to injury for a determined 64 in the 36th innings segment.

It was leaning toward Bangladesh heading into the final two innings segments, with merely 12 additional runs required.

Nevertheless, Dasanayaka sent back Ritu and gave away only three scoring runs before the captain's chaos, with Rabeya Khan, Nahida, captain Joty and Marufa Akter all dismissed as Sri Lanka seized the win at the very end.

Ultimately, it was a match of nerves. The very experienced Athapaththu, who directed away a several of team-mates as she got ready to bowl the final over, held her composure. The opposition could not.

There will be many doubts about the team's batting performance. They might well have been needing around 270-280 with Sri Lanka appearing at ease on 159-4 in the 30th bowling phase, but instead the required total was much lower.

However, the batting side lacked purpose from the very beginning, scoring at under 2.5 scoring rate during the powerplay, experiencing a initial wicket loss, and finally leaving themselves too much to achieve.

But no matter what difficulties there are with their batting, if they had accepted their opportunities in the field, that 203-run target objective would have been significantly smaller.

It took them three tries to break the 72-run partnership second-wicket collaboration, with keeper Joty being unable to grab a difficult opportunity behind the stumps to send back Hasini Perera on 23 runs before Athapaththu survived from a caught and bowled chance against Rabeya Khan.

Perera was missed again on 55 runs and 63 runs, the latter chance traveling right to Rubya Haider Jhilik at cover field, before finally being trapped lbw by Shorna Akter as she attempted to increase the tempo with batting partners getting out near her.

Afterwards in the game, there was furthermore a stumping chance missed and a run-out opportunity lost, although the second one was a little unfortunate, with Rubya Haider deputising with the gloves following an physical problem to the regular keeper.

Sadly for Bangladesh, such fielding woes are not at all a single occurrence. They've missed 14 opportunities from a possible 27 opportunities at this tournament and display the lowest fielding effectiveness (48.1 percent) of the eight teams.

They are a side who are generally heading in the correct path – they are playing in merely their second ODI World Cup in the end – but inadequate fielding standards is a glaring problem which needs focus.