The Lankan team defeats Bangladesh to preserve their World Cup campaign alive

Women's Cricket World Cup, Navi 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); Chamari Athapaththu 4-42

The Lankan side emerge victorious by seven runs

Sri Lanka took four wickets in the last innings segment to seal a heart-stopping triumph over their opponents and preserve their faint aspirations of qualifying for the World Cup semi-finals alive.

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

Yet, Sri Lanka captain Athapaththu took three wickets in four bowls and Nilakshi de Silva ran out Nahida Akter to bring about a exciting win for Sri Lanka.

The triumph – the Lankan team's maiden of the World Cup after three defeats and two no-results against Australia and the Kiwi side – pushes them tied on four match points with the Indian team and the New Zealand side, who face each other on Thursday.

Bangladesh, however, experienced a fifth straight defeat since winning their tournament opener against the Pakistani team and have been knocked out.

Although Bangladesh made the excellent commencement, with Marufa Akter taking a wicket with the first delivery of the match to dismiss Vishmi Gunaratne, they were appropriately penalized for a subpar fielding performance.

They gifted lifelines to Hasini Perera, who was spilled multiple times, and the Lankan captain.

Even though the Sri Lankan skipper could not capitalise, dismissed lbw for 46 just one delivery after being dropped by Rabeya, Perera forced the opposition regret it.

She scored a maiden international half-century, scoring 85 from 99 bowls and sharing an significant 74-run fifth-wicket with Nilakshi de Silva.

Bangladesh, guided by Shorna Akter's three wickets for 27 runs, dragged themselves back into the game, with Nilakshi's dismissal in the 34th bowling segment causing a Lankan collapse from 174 for four to 202 complete.

During their chase, Sri Lanka's opening bowlers Malki Madara and Udeshika Prabodhani limited Bangladesh to 23 with one wicket down in a lacklustre powerplay and they were later brought down to 44 with three wickets lost.

Sharmin and Joty restored their batting effort, putting on an 82-run partnership for the fourth wicket stand before Sharmin left the field injured for a stubborn 64 in the 36th over.

It was in favor of the chasing team approaching the remaining two overs, with just 12 runs necessary.

Yet, Sugandika Dasanayaka sent back Ritu and gave away merely three runs before the captain's decisive intervention, with Rabeya, Nahida, captain Joty and Marufa Akter all dismissed as Sri Lanka seized the victory at the final moment.

In the end, it was a match of nerve. The seasoned Lankan captain, who directed away a handful of teammates as she got ready to deliver the last over, kept her composure. Bangladesh did not.

There will be many doubts about the team's batting effort. They could easily have been pursuing 270 to 280 with Sri Lanka appearing comfortable on 159-4 in the 30th innings segment, but instead the required total was much lower.

However, the batting side lacked intent from ball one, making runs at less than 2.5 runs per over during the initial phase, undergoing a early batting collapse, and finally leaving themselves excessive to achieve.

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

It needed them three efforts to terminate the 72-run stand second-wicket, with wicketkeeper Nigar Sultana not managing to grab a difficult catch behind the stumps to send back Hasini Perera on 23 before the captain survived from a return catch chance against Rabeya Khan.

Perera was dropped again on her score of 55 and her score of 63, the last attempt flying directly to Jhilik at cover, before ultimately being trapped lbw by Shorna Akter as she attempted to increase the tempo with teammates getting out near her.

Subsequently in the innings, there was furthermore a failed stumping and a missed run-out, even though the run-out chance was a slightly unfortunate, with Jhilik substituting with the wicketkeeping gloves after an injury to Joty.

Sadly for the team, such fielding issues are nowhere near a one-off. They've missed 14 catches from a possible 27 at this World Cup and boast the lowest catching success rate (less than 50%) of the competing sides.

They are a side who are generally heading in the right direction – they are competing in only their second one-day World Cup after all – but poor fielding performance is a prominent concern which demands improvement.