Sri Lanka defeats the Bangladeshi side to maintain their campaign breathing

ICC Women's World Cup, Mumbai

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

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

The Lankan side emerge victorious by seven runs

The Lankan cricket team took four crucial dismissals in the final over to seal a heart-stopping victory over their opponents and maintain their slim chances of making it for the tournament knockout stage ongoing.

Needing a below-par score of 203 on a favorable wicket in Navi Mumbai, Bangladesh wanted nine more runs from the remaining six deliveries.

Nevertheless, Sri Lanka captain Chamari Athapaththu secured three wickets in four bowls and de Silva dismissed via run-out Nahida to achieve a thrilling success for the Lankan team.

The victory – the Lankan team's first of the tournament after three defeats and two no-results against the Australian team and the Kiwi side – elevates them level on four tournament points with India and New Zealand, who meet each other on Thursday.

The Bangladeshi team, on the other hand, endured a fifth consecutive defeat since winning their initial game against the Pakistani team and have been removed from contention.

Even though Bangladesh got off to the perfect start, with Marufa taking a wicket with the opening bowl of the encounter to remove Vishmi Gunaratne, they were rightfully penalized for a disappointing fielding display.

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

Although the Sri Lankan skipper was unable to make it count, dismissed lbw for 46 a single bowl after being missed by Rabeya Khan, Hasini Perera made Bangladesh pay.

She achieved a first international half-century, scoring 85 from 99 deliveries and building an crucial 74-run fifth-wicket with Nilakshi de Silva.

Bangladesh, guided by Shorna Akter's three wickets for 27 runs, dragged themselves back in the contest, with De Silva's removal in the 34th over causing a Lankan batting collapse from 174 for four to 202 total.

While batting second, Sri Lanka's initial pace attack Madara and Prabodhani limited the opposition to 23-1 in a uninspiring opening overs and they were later brought down to 44 with three wickets lost.

Sharmin and Joty reconstructed their batting effort, adding 82 runs for the fourth wicket stand before the batter left the field injured for a resolute 64 in the 36th over.

It was in favor of Bangladesh entering the remaining two overs, with merely 12 runs needed.

However, Sugandika Dasanayaka sent back Ritu and gave away just three runs before the captain's dramatic spell, with Rabeya, Nahida Akter, skipper Joty and Marufa Akter all dismissed as the Lankan team seized the victory at the final moment.

Ultimately, it was a match of composure. The highly experienced Athapaththu, who moved aside a few of team-mates as she set herself to bowl the decisive over, maintained her nerve. The opposition did not.

There will be numerous inquiries about the team's batting display. They could easily have been chasing around 270-280 with Sri Lanka seeming at ease on 159-4 in the 30th bowling phase, but instead the target was much lower.

However, the batting side lacked intent from the start, making runs at less than 2.5 runs each over during the powerplay, suffering a top-order collapse, and ultimately making themselves too much to accomplish.

But no matter what issues there are with their batting, if they had seized their catches in the fielding area, that 203-run target objective would have been considerably smaller.

It needed them three attempts to break the 72-run second-wicket, with wicketkeeper Nigar Sultana not managing to hold a challenging opportunity as wicketkeeper to send back Hasini Perera on her score of 23 before Athapaththu was spared from a caught and bowled chance against Rabeya Khan.

The batter was dropped further on 55 runs and 63 runs, the last attempt traveling right to Jhilik at cover position, before finally being given out lbw by Shorna Akter as she attempted to increase the tempo with batting partners being dismissed near her.

Afterwards in the batting effort, there was additionally a missed stumping and a run-out opportunity lost, even though the second one was a little unlucky, with Jhilik standing in with the gloves after an injury to the regular keeper.

Unfortunately for the team, such fielding problems are not at all a single occurrence. They've dropped 14 chances from a possible 27 opportunities at this World Cup and display the worst catching success rate (48.1%) of the competing sides.

They are a squad who are overall progressing in the right direction – they are participating in merely their second one-day World Cup after all – but inadequate fielding is a obvious issue which requires improvement.