Sri Lanka beats the Bangladeshi side to maintain their campaign ongoing

Women's Cricket World Cup, Navi Mumbai

The Lankan team 202 (48.4 overs): 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 margin

The Lankan cricket team took four crucial dismissals in the last innings segment to achieve a nail-biting triumph over Bangladesh and preserve their narrow chances of qualifying for the World Cup semi-finals intact.

Chasing a below-par target of 203 on a favorable wicket in Navi Mumbai, Bangladesh wanted nine additional runs from the last six balls.

However, Lankan skipper Athapaththu took three crucial wickets in four balls and Nilakshi de Silva ran out Nahida to bring about a exciting win for Sri Lanka.

The triumph – the Lankan team's first of the tournament after three unsuccessful matches and two no-results against Australia and New Zealand – elevates them tied on four points with the Indian team and the New Zealand side, who confront each other on Thursday.

Bangladesh, however, endured a fifth successive setback since securing victory in their first match against the Pakistani team and have been removed from contention.

While the Bangladeshi side made the excellent commencement, with Marufa Akter taking a wicket with the opening bowl of the encounter to dismiss Gunaratne, they were appropriately made to pay for a disappointing fielding effort.

They provided second chances to Hasini Perera, who was missed multiple times, and the Lankan captain.

Although Athapaththu was unable to take advantage, sent back leg before wicket for 46 a single bowl after being put down by Rabeya Khan, Perera made Bangladesh pay.

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

Bangladesh, spearheaded by Shorna Akter's impressive bowling figures, fought themselves back in the contest, with De Silva's removal in the 34th bowling segment triggering a Sri Lanka collapse from 174 for four to 202 total.

In reply, Sri Lanka's initial pace attack Malki Madara and Prabodhani restricted the opposition to 23 for one in a disappointing initial phase and they were later brought down to 44 with three wickets lost.

Sharmin and Nigar Sultana Joty reconstructed their batting effort, adding an 82-run partnership for the fourth wicket before the batter left the field injured for a stubborn 64 in the 36th innings segment.

It was advantage the chasing team approaching the remaining two innings segments, with merely 12 more runs required.

However, Dasanayaka removed Ritu and conceded only three runs before Athapaththu's chaos, with Rabeya, Nahida, skipper Joty and Marufa all dismissed as the Lankan team seized the win at the death.

In the end, it was a match of composure. The highly experienced Athapaththu, who moved aside a several of team-mates as she set herself to deliver the last over, held hers. Bangladesh could not.

There will be numerous inquiries about Bangladesh's batting effort. They possibly have been chasing around 270-280 with the Lankan team looking comfortable on 159 for four in the 30th bowling phase, but instead the required total was much lower.

Yet, the batting side displayed insufficient aggression from the start, accumulating runs at less than 2.5 runs per over during the initial phase, suffering a early batting collapse, and ultimately making themselves excessive to do.

But no matter what problems there are with their batting lineup, if they had accepted their chances in the field, that 203-run target would have been substantially smaller.

It needed them three attempts to end the 72-run partnership second-wicket, with wicketkeeper Joty being unable to hold a difficult chance behind the stumps to dismiss Hasini Perera on 23 runs before the captain got a reprieve from a caught and bowled chance chance against Rabeya.

Perera was spilled once more on her score of 55 and her score of 63, the final opportunity 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 being dismissed near her.

Afterwards in the game, there was also a stumping chance missed and a missed run-out, even though the second one was a little regrettable, with Rubya Haider substituting with the gloves due to 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 have the poorest fielding effectiveness (less than 50%) of the eight teams.

They are a squad who are typically heading in the right direction – they are competing in just their second one-day World Cup after all – but substandard fielding is a prominent concern which requires improvement.