The Lankan team beats Bangladesh to maintain their campaign alive

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); Athapaththu 4-42

Sri Lanka emerge victorious by seven runs margin

Sri Lanka claimed four wickets in the final over to complete a nail-biting triumph over Bangladesh and preserve their narrow hopes of making it for the World Cup semi-finals alive.

Chasing a modest score of 203 on a batting-friendly pitch in the Mumbai stadium, the Bangladeshi team required nine additional runs from the remaining six bowls.

However, Sri Lanka captain Chamari Athapaththu took three important dismissals in four deliveries and Nilakshi de Silva ran out Nahida Akter to secure a dramatic success for the Lankan team.

The win – the Lankan team's maiden of the tournament after three losses and two abandoned games against Australia and the Kiwi side – moves them level on four points with the Indian team and the New Zealand side, who meet each other on Thursday.

Bangladesh, in contrast, experienced a fifth consecutive defeat since winning their tournament opener against Pakistan and have been removed from contention.

While the Bangladeshi side got off to the perfect start, with Marufa striking with the initial ball of the game to send back Gunaratne, they were appropriately made to pay for a poor fielding effort.

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

Even though Athapaththu was unable to capitalise, dismissed lbw for 46 a single bowl after being put down by Rabeya Khan, Perera made Bangladesh regret it.

She registered a debut international half-century, accumulating 85 from 99 bowls and contributing to an crucial 74-run partnership fifth-wicket association with Nilakshi de Silva.

Bangladesh, led by Shorna's impressive bowling figures, fought themselves back into the match, with Nilakshi's dismissal in the 34th over initiating a Sri Lanka downfall from 174 for four to 202 total.

While batting second, the Lankan team's initial pace attack Madara and Prabodhani restricted the opposition to 23-1 in a lacklustre powerplay and they were subsequently reduced to 44 for three.

Sharmin and Joty rebuilt their score, adding 82 runs for the fourth wicket collaboration before the batter retired hurt for a determined 64 in the 36th bowling phase.

It was in favor of Bangladesh entering the final two innings segments, with just 12 additional runs required.

Yet, Sugandika Dasanayaka removed Ritu Moni and gave away merely three scoring runs before the captain's chaos, with Rabeya Khan, Nahida, captain Joty and Marufa all removed as Sri Lanka grabbed the triumph at the very end.

In the end, it was a game of nerve. The highly experienced Lankan captain, who directed away a handful of team-mates as she got ready to bowl the final over, maintained her composure. The opposition failed to.

There will be many questions about the team's batting effort. They possibly have been needing around 270-280 with Sri Lanka looking comfortable on 159 with four wickets down in the 30th innings segment, but instead the chase was considerably smaller.

However, Bangladesh showed little purpose from ball one, scoring at below 2.5 runs each over during the initial phase, experiencing a early batting collapse, and finally forcing themselves overwhelming to accomplish.

But no matter what problems there are with their batting approach, if they had accepted their catches in the fielding department, that 203-run objective would have been substantially smaller.

It needed them three tries to terminate the 72-run partnership second-wicket, with wicketkeeper Nigar Sultana not managing to take a tough catch behind the stumps to send back Perera on 23 runs before the captain survived from a caught and bowled opportunity against Rabeya.

Perera was dropped once more on 55 and 63 runs, the latter chance going directly to Jhilik at cover field, before ultimately being dismissed lbw by Shorna Akter as she tried to accelerate the scoring with batting partners falling near her.

Subsequently in the batting effort, there was additionally a stumping chance missed and a failed run-out, although the run-out chance was a slightly unlucky, with Rubya Haider substituting with the keeping duties after an fitness issue to the regular keeper.

Regrettably for the team, such fielding woes are not at all a single occurrence. They've failed to catch 14 chances from a available 27 at this tournament and have the lowest catch efficiency (less than 50%) of the eight teams.

They are a side who are typically moving in the correct path – they are playing in merely their second one-day World Cup after all – but substandard fielding standards is a obvious issue which needs improvement.