The Lankan team beats the Bangladeshi side to maintain their World Cup tournament hopes ongoing

ICC Women's 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): Joty 77 (98); Athapaththu 4-42

Sri Lanka emerge victorious by seven runs

The Lankan cricket team took four wickets in the last over to complete a thrilling win over Bangladesh and maintain their narrow chances of making it for the World Cup semi-finals ongoing.

Pursuing a below-par target of 203 on a good batting surface in the Mumbai stadium, Bangladesh wanted nine runs from the last six balls.

However, Lankan skipper Athapaththu secured three crucial wickets in four deliveries and Nilakshi de Silva ran out Nahida Akter to bring about a thrilling victory for the Lankan team.

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

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

Even though Bangladesh made the perfect start, with Marufa Akter striking with the opening bowl of the match to send back Vishmi Gunaratne, they were rightfully penalized for a subpar fielding performance.

They offered reprieves to Perera, who was spilled multiple times, and Athapaththu.

Although the Sri Lankan skipper failed to take advantage, sent back leg before wicket for 46 just one delivery after being dropped by Rabeya Khan, Hasini Perera forced Bangladesh suffer.

She achieved a first international fifty, accumulating 85 from 99 balls and building an crucial 74-run stand fifth-wicket association with Nilakshi de Silva.

Bangladesh, guided by Shorna's impressive bowling figures, dragged themselves back in the game, with Nilakshi's dismissal in the 34th innings segment initiating a Sri Lanka batting collapse from 174-4 to 202 complete.

While batting second, the Lankan team's starting bowlers Malki Madara and Prabodhani limited the opposition to 23 with one wicket down in a lacklustre opening overs and they were afterwards brought down to 44 with three wickets lost.

Sharmin and Nigar Sultana Joty reconstructed their score, putting on an 82-run partnership for the fourth wicket collaboration before the batter withdrew due to injury for a resolute 64 in the 36th bowling phase.

It was leaning toward the chasing team approaching the remaining two overs, with just 12 runs needed.

Nevertheless, Sugandika Dasanayaka removed Ritu and conceded only three scoring runs before Athapaththu's dramatic spell, with Rabeya, Nahida Akter, skipper Joty and Marufa Akter all sent back as Sri Lanka grabbed the triumph at the very end.

Ultimately, it was a contest of nerve. The very experienced Athapaththu, who directed away a few of team-mates as she prepared to deliver the last over, maintained her nerve. Bangladesh did not.

There will be many inquiries about Bangladesh's batting effort. They possibly have been needing 270 or 280 with the Lankan team appearing at ease on 159-4 in the 30th over, but instead the target was much lower.

However, Bangladesh showed little purpose from the start, accumulating runs at below 2.5 runs each over during the opening overs, experiencing a top-order collapse, and finally leaving themselves too much to achieve.

But no matter what difficulties there are with their batting, if they had seized their catches in the fielding area, that 203 total objective would have been significantly lower.

It required them three tries to break the 72-run second-wicket, with wicketkeeper Joty failing to grab a challenging chance behind the stumps to dismiss Hasini Perera on her score of 23 before Athapaththu survived from a caught and bowled opportunity against Rabeya Khan.

The batter was dropped further on 55 runs and 63, the latter chance flying straight to Rubya Haider Jhilik at cover field, before eventually being dismissed lbw by Shorna as she tried to up the ante with batting partners falling near her.

Later in the innings, there was additionally a stumping chance missed and a run-out opportunity lost, while the latter was a somewhat unfortunate, with Jhilik substituting with the keeping duties after an physical problem to Joty.

Sadly for Bangladesh, such fielding woes are not at all a single occurrence. They've missed 14 chances from a possible 27 at this tournament and have the worst catching success rate (48.1 percent) of the eight teams.

They are a team who are typically progressing in the proper way – they are participating in only their second one-day World Cup ultimately – but inadequate fielding is a glaring problem which demands improvement.