The Lankan team beats the Bangladeshi side to preserve their tournament hopes ongoing

ICC Women's 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 emerge victorious by seven runs margin

The Lankan cricket team claimed four crucial dismissals in the decisive over to achieve a thrilling victory over their opponents and keep their slim chances of qualifying for the tournament knockout stage alive.

Chasing a modest target of 203 on a favorable wicket in the Mumbai stadium, Bangladesh wanted nine more runs from the final six deliveries.

Nevertheless, Lankan skipper Athapaththu took three wickets in four deliveries and Nilakshi de Silva ran out Nahida Akter to secure a dramatic win for Sri Lanka.

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

Bangladesh, however, experienced a fifth successive defeat since winning their initial game against the Pakistani team and have been knocked out.

Although the Bangladeshi side made the ideal beginning, with Marufa Akter striking with the first delivery of the game to dismiss Gunaratne, they were appropriately punished for a poor fielding display.

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

Although the Sri Lankan skipper could not take advantage, sent back leg before wicket for 46 one ball after being put down by Rabeya Khan, Hasini Perera made the opposition regret it.

She scored a maiden international 50-run score, making 85 from 99 deliveries and sharing an significant 74-run partnership fifth-wicket with Nilakshi de Silva.

Bangladesh, guided by Shorna's 3-27, pulled themselves back to the match, with Nilakshi's dismissal in the 34th over triggering a Lankan downfall from 174 with four wickets down to 202 total.

In reply, the Lankan team's initial pace attack Malki Madara and Prabodhani limited Bangladesh to 23-1 in a lacklustre initial phase and they were later diminished to 44 for three.

Sharmin and Nigar Sultana Joty restored their score, contributing 82 runs for the fourth wicket stand before the batter withdrew due to injury for a resolute 64 in the 36th bowling phase.

It was advantage the chasing team entering the remaining two innings segments, with merely 12 additional runs necessary.

Yet, Dasanayaka removed Ritu and conceded merely three runs before the captain's chaos, with Rabeya Khan, Nahida Akter, captain Joty and Marufa all removed as the Lankan team grabbed the win at the final moment.

Finally, it was a match of nerves. The seasoned Lankan captain, who moved aside a several of teammates as she set herself to deliver the final over, held hers. The opposition failed to.

There will be many doubts about Bangladesh's batting display. They might well have been chasing around 270-280 with the Lankan team seeming settled on 159-4 in the 30th innings segment, but in contrast the required total was significantly less.

Yet, the batting side displayed insufficient aggression from the very beginning, scoring at under 2.5 scoring rate during the opening overs, undergoing a initial wicket loss, and finally forcing themselves excessive to do.

But whatever difficulties there are with their batting, if they had taken their chances in the fielding area, that 203-run objective would have been considerably lower.

It required them three efforts to break the 72-run partnership second-wicket collaboration, with keeper Joty failing to take a difficult opportunity as wicketkeeper to send back Perera on 23 runs before Athapaththu survived from a return catch chance against Rabeya Khan.

The batter was spilled once more on 55 and 63 runs, the final opportunity flying directly to Jhilik at cover field, before ultimately being dismissed leg before wicket by Shorna Akter as she tried to up the ante with batting partners falling around her.

Later in the batting effort, there was additionally a missed stumping and a missed run-out, while the second one was a slightly unfortunate, with Jhilik deputising with the wicketkeeping gloves following an fitness issue to Joty.

Regrettably for the team, such fielding problems are far from a isolated incident. They've missed 14 catches from a potential 27 at this competition and have the lowest catching success rate (48.1%) of the participating teams.

They are a side who are overall heading in the correct path – they are participating in just their second ODI World Cup in the end – but substandard fielding performance is a obvious issue which demands attention.