Sri Lanka defeats Bangladesh to maintain their World Cup campaign breathing

ICC Women's World Cup, Navi Mumbai

The Lankan team 202 (48.4 overs): Hasini Perera 85 (99); Shorna 3-27

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

The Lankan side emerge victorious by seven runs margin

The Lankan cricket team claimed four wickets in the decisive over to achieve a heart-stopping triumph over Bangladesh and maintain their slim aspirations of making it for the tournament knockout stage intact.

Chasing a modest target of 203 on a favorable wicket in the Mumbai stadium, the Bangladeshi team wanted nine additional runs from the last six balls.

However, Lankan skipper Chamari Athapaththu secured three important dismissals in four bowls and Nilakshi de Silva dismissed via run-out Nahida Akter to secure a dramatic victory for the Lankan team.

The win – the Lankan team's maiden of the tournament after three losses and two abandoned games against Australia and the Kiwi side – moves them tied on four match points with India and New Zealand, who meet each other on the coming Thursday.

Bangladesh, in contrast, suffered a fifth consecutive loss since winning their initial game against the Pakistani team and have been eliminated.

Even though Bangladesh made the ideal beginning, with Marufa taking a wicket with the initial ball of the game to dismiss Vishmi Gunaratne, they were appropriately penalized for a subpar fielding performance.

They offered reprieves to Hasini Perera, who was missed three times, and Athapaththu.

While the Sri Lankan skipper was unable to capitalise, sent back lbw for 46 a single bowl after being put down by Rabeya, Hasini Perera made Bangladesh suffer.

She scored a debut international half-century, making 85 from 99 deliveries and building an significant 74-run fifth-wicket collaboration with Nilakshi de Silva.

The Bangladeshi team, guided by Shorna's impressive bowling figures, pulled themselves back to the contest, with Nilakshi's wicket in the 34th innings segment initiating a Sri Lanka batting collapse from 174-4 to 202 complete.

While batting second, the Lankan team's opening bowlers Madara and Udeshika Prabodhani restricted the opposition to 23 for one in a uninspiring powerplay and they were subsequently reduced to 44 for three.

Sharmin and Nigar Sultana Joty rebuilt their innings, contributing 82 runs for the fourth wicket collaboration before the batter left the field injured for a resolute 64 in the 36th over.

It was in favor of Bangladesh entering the last two overs, with merely 12 runs needed.

Yet, Sugandika Dasanayaka removed Ritu and allowed only three scoring runs before Athapaththu's chaos, with Rabeya Khan, Nahida, captain Joty and Marufa Akter all dismissed as Sri Lanka snatched the win at the final moment.

Finally, it was a contest of nerve. The highly experienced Lankan captain, who ushered away a handful of team-mates as she got ready to bowl the last over, kept her nerve. Bangladesh could not.

There will be many inquiries about Bangladesh's batting display. They could easily have been chasing 270 to 280 with the Lankan team seeming comfortable on 159-4 in the 30th bowling phase, but instead the required total was much lower.

Nevertheless, the batting side lacked purpose from ball one, scoring at less than 2.5 runs per over during the powerplay, undergoing a early batting collapse, and finally leaving themselves excessive to do.

But no matter what difficulties there are with their batting lineup, if they had seized their opportunities in the fielding department, that 203-run target would have been substantially lower.

It needed them three tries to break the 72-run partnership second-wicket, with keeper Nigar Sultana not managing to take a tough catch while keeping to send back Perera on her score of 23 before the captain survived from a caught and bowled chance chance against Rabeya.

The batter was spilled once more on her score of 55 and 63 runs, the final opportunity flying straight to Rubya Haider Jhilik at cover field, before finally being dismissed lbw by Shorna as she tried to accelerate the scoring with batting partners getting out beside her.

Later in the batting effort, there was additionally a missed stumping and a run-out opportunity lost, even though the run-out chance was a somewhat unlucky, with Rubya Haider substituting with the wicketkeeping gloves due to an physical problem to the regular keeper.

Unfortunately for the team, such fielding problems are nowhere near a single occurrence. They've failed to catch 14 chances from a available 27 at this World Cup and have the poorest fielding effectiveness (48.1 percent) of the participating teams.

They are a team who are overall progressing in the right direction – they are competing in only their second ODI World Cup ultimately – but substandard fielding performance is a obvious issue which needs focus.