Sri Lanka defeats the Bangladeshi side to preserve their tournament hopes ongoing

ICC Women's World Cup, Mumbai

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

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

Sri Lanka emerge victorious by seven runs

Sri Lanka claimed four wickets in the decisive innings segment to seal a thrilling victory over Bangladesh and keep their slim hopes of qualifying for the World Cup semi-finals intact.

Needing a attainable score of 203 on a favorable wicket in the Mumbai stadium, Bangladesh wanted nine more runs from the final six bowls.

Nevertheless, Sri Lanka captain Athapaththu took three important dismissals in four bowls and Nilakshi de Silva dismissed via run-out Nahida to achieve a thrilling victory for Sri Lanka.

The triumph – the Lankan team's first of the World Cup after three losses and two abandoned games against the Australian team and the Kiwi side – moves them tied on four points with the Indian team and New Zealand, who meet each other on the coming Thursday.

Bangladesh, on the other hand, suffered a fifth straight setback since winning their first match against the Pakistani team and have been knocked out.

Even though the Bangladeshi side got off to the excellent commencement, with Marufa Akter striking with the first delivery of the game to remove Vishmi Gunaratne, they were appropriately punished for a subpar fielding performance.

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

While Athapaththu could not make it count, dismissed lbw for 46 a single bowl after being put down by Rabeya Khan, Hasini Perera forced Bangladesh regret it.

She scored a first international 50-run score, making 85 from 99 bowls and building an important 74-run partnership fifth-wicket with Nilakshi de Silva.

The Bangladeshi team, led by Shorna's 3-27, pulled themselves back to the game, with De Silva's wicket in the 34th innings segment triggering a Lankan collapse from 174 for four to 202 all out.

In reply, the Lankan team's starting bowlers Malki Madara and Udeshika Prabodhani limited the opposition to 23 with one wicket down in a disappointing initial phase and they were afterwards brought down to 44 with three wickets lost.

Sharmin and Joty rebuilt their score, putting on 82 runs for the fourth wicket collaboration before the batter retired hurt for a determined 64 in the 36th innings segment.

It was advantage the chasing team approaching the remaining two bowling phases, with merely 12 more runs necessary.

However, Dasanayaka removed Ritu and allowed merely three scoring runs before the captain's chaos, with Rabeya, Nahida, skipper Joty and Marufa Akter all removed as the Lankan team seized the win at the very end.

In the end, it was a contest of nerves. The seasoned Lankan captain, who directed away a handful of teammates as she got ready to bowl the final over, maintained her nerve. The opposition could not.

There will be many inquiries about the team's batting performance. They might well have been pursuing around 270-280 with the Lankan team looking at ease on 159-4 in the 30th innings segment, but instead the chase was significantly less.

Yet, the batting side showed little purpose from the start, making runs at less than 2.5 runs per over during the powerplay, undergoing a top-order collapse, and eventually making themselves overwhelming to achieve.

But no matter what difficulties there are with their batting approach, if they had seized their chances in the fielding department, that 203-run target goal would have been substantially less.

It needed them three attempts to break the 72-run second-wicket collaboration, with wicketkeeper Joty failing to grab a tough opportunity while keeping to remove Perera on 23 before Athapaththu survived from a return catch opportunity against Rabeya.

Perera was missed again on her score of 55 and her score of 63, the last attempt traveling right to Jhilik at cover, before finally being dismissed leg before wicket by Shorna as she tried to up the ante with partners falling near her.

Subsequently in the innings, there was furthermore a failed stumping and a failed run-out, even though the latter was a little unlucky, with Jhilik deputising with the keeping duties after an injury to the regular keeper.

Sadly for the team, such fielding issues are far from a one-off. They've failed to catch 14 chances from a possible 27 opportunities at this tournament and have the lowest catching success rate (48.1%) of the competing sides.

They are a squad who are overall moving in the right direction – they are participating in merely their second one-day World Cup in the end – but inadequate fielding is a glaring concern which demands attention.