The Lankan team overcomes Bangladesh to preserve their campaign alive

Women's Cricket World Cup, Mumbai

Sri Lanka 202 (48.4 overs): Perera 85 (99); Shorna 3-27

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

Sri Lanka win by seven runs

Sri Lanka secured four crucial dismissals in the last innings segment to achieve a nail-biting victory over their opponents and preserve their narrow chances of making it for the World Cup semi-finals intact.

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

Yet, Sri Lanka captain Athapaththu took three important dismissals in four balls and de Silva dismissed via run-out Nahida to secure a dramatic success for Sri Lanka.

The victory – Sri Lanka's maiden of the competition after three losses and two no-results against Australia and New Zealand – pushes them level on four tournament points with India and New Zealand, who face each other on the coming Thursday.

The Bangladeshi team, in contrast, experienced a fifth successive defeat since winning their first match against the Pakistani team and have been removed from contention.

While the Bangladeshi side made the excellent commencement, with Marufa taking a wicket with the opening bowl of the game to send back Vishmi Gunaratne, they were rightfully punished for a poor fielding performance.

They provided reprieves to Perera, who was spilled three times, and Athapaththu.

Although the Sri Lankan skipper could not capitalise, sent back leg before wicket for 46 a single bowl after being dropped by Rabeya, Hasini Perera forced the opposition pay.

She achieved a first international fifty, accumulating 85 from 99 balls and sharing an crucial 74-run partnership fifth-wicket association with De Silva.

The Bangladeshi team, led by Shorna Akter's three wickets for 27 runs, pulled themselves back in the game, with De Silva's wicket in the 34th over triggering a Lankan batting collapse from 174 with four wickets down to 202 total.

During their chase, Sri Lanka's initial pace attack Malki Madara and Udeshika Prabodhani restricted the opposition to 23 for one in a disappointing initial phase and they were subsequently brought down to 44-3.

Sharmin and Joty restored their score, putting on 82 for the fourth wicket stand before Sharmin left the field injured for a stubborn 64 in the 36th bowling phase.

It was in favor of Bangladesh approaching the last two overs, with only 12 more runs needed.

Nevertheless, Sugandika Dasanayaka dismissed Ritu and gave away only three scoring runs before Athapaththu's decisive intervention, with Rabeya, Nahida Akter, skipper Joty and Marufa all sent back as the Lankan team seized the victory at the very end.

In the end, it was a contest of nerve. The highly experienced Athapaththu, who directed away a handful of fellow players as she got ready to bowl the final over, maintained her composure. Bangladesh did not.

There will be numerous inquiries about the team's batting effort. They possibly have been pursuing around 270-280 with Sri Lanka looking comfortable on 159-4 in the 30th bowling phase, but rather the chase was considerably smaller.

However, the batting side showed little intent from the very beginning, scoring at under 2.5 runs per over during the opening overs, experiencing a top-order collapse, and ultimately making themselves too much to do.

But whatever difficulties there are with their batting approach, if they had accepted their chances in the fielding department, that 203-run target would have been significantly lower.

It took them three efforts to end the 72-run partnership second-wicket, with keeper Joty not managing to take a difficult catch behind the stumps to send back Perera on her score of 23 before Athapaththu survived from a caught and bowled chance possibility against Rabeya Khan.

Perera was dropped again on 55 runs and 63 runs, the latter chance flying right to Rubya Haider Jhilik at cover, before ultimately being trapped lbw by Shorna Akter as she sought to accelerate the scoring with teammates being dismissed around her.

Subsequently in the batting effort, there was furthermore a missed stumping and a missed run-out, while the latter was a slightly regrettable, with Rubya Haider standing in with the gloves after an fitness issue to Joty.

Unfortunately for Bangladesh, such fielding issues are far from a isolated incident. They've missed 14 chances from a potential 27 chances at this tournament and display the poorest catching success rate (less than 50%) of the competing sides.

They are a team who are typically heading in the right direction – they are participating in merely their second ODI World Cup in the end – but inadequate fielding standards is a obvious issue which needs attention.