Sri Lanka beats Bangladesh to keep their World Cup campaign alive

Women's Cricket World Cup, Mumbai

Sri Lanka 202 (48.4 overs): Hasini Perera 85 (99); Shorna 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 secured four wickets in the decisive over to complete a thrilling win over Bangladesh and keep their slim chances of making it for the World Cup semi-finals ongoing.

Chasing a below-par target of 203 on a batting-friendly pitch in Navi Mumbai, the Bangladeshi team needed nine runs from the final six deliveries.

Yet, Lankan skipper Athapaththu claimed three wickets in four deliveries and Nilakshi de Silva dismissed via run-out Nahida Akter to bring about a exciting success for Sri Lanka.

The win – Sri Lanka's initial of the competition after three unsuccessful matches and two washed-out matches against the Australian team and New Zealand – elevates them tied on four match points with the Indian team and New Zealand, who confront each other on the coming Thursday.

The Bangladeshi team, however, suffered a fifth consecutive setback since winning their tournament opener against the Pakistani team and have been removed from contention.

Even though the Bangladeshi side got off to the ideal beginning, with Marufa striking with the opening bowl of the game to dismiss Gunaratne, they were appropriately punished for a poor fielding display.

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

Although the Sri Lankan skipper failed to take advantage, sent back lbw for 46 just one delivery after being missed by Rabeya, Hasini Perera forced Bangladesh pay.

She registered a debut international 50-run score, accumulating 85 from 99 deliveries and sharing an significant 74-run fifth-wicket association with De Silva.

Bangladesh, led by Shorna's 3-27, dragged themselves back to the contest, with De Silva's wicket in the 34th over initiating a Sri Lanka batting collapse from 174-4 to 202 total.

In reply, the Lankan team's initial pace attack Malki Madara and Prabodhani contained the opposition to 23 for one in a lacklustre opening overs and they were afterwards brought down to 44-3.

Sharmin Akter and Nigar Sultana Joty restored their innings, putting on 82 runs for the fourth wicket collaboration before Sharmin retired hurt for a determined 64 in the 36th innings segment.

It was in favor of Bangladesh heading into the last two innings segments, with only 12 additional runs required.

Nevertheless, Dasanayaka dismissed Ritu and conceded just three runs before the captain's dramatic spell, with Rabeya, Nahida Akter, skipper Joty and Marufa Akter all sent back as the Lankan team seized the win at the very end.

Finally, it was a match of nerves. The very experienced Lankan captain, who directed away a several of fellow players as she set herself to deliver the final over, held hers. Bangladesh could not.

There will be many questions about the team's batting display. They might well have been needing 270 to 280 with the Lankan team looking settled on 159 with four wickets down in the 30th bowling phase, but in contrast the chase was much lower.

However, Bangladesh lacked purpose from ball one, accumulating runs at below 2.5 runs each over during the opening overs, experiencing a top-order collapse, and eventually forcing themselves excessive to do.

But no matter what issues there are with their batting, if they had seized their chances in the fielding department, that 203 total objective would have been considerably smaller.

It required them three efforts to break the 72-run partnership second-wicket, with wicketkeeper Joty being unable to grab a challenging opportunity behind the stumps to dismiss Perera on 23 before Athapaththu survived from a caught and bowled chance against Rabeya Khan.

Perera was dropped again on 55 and 63 runs, the latter chance going straight to Rubya Haider Jhilik at cover, before finally being trapped leg before wicket by Shorna Akter as she sought to increase the tempo with batting partners being dismissed beside her.

Subsequently in the batting effort, there was additionally a failed stumping and a run-out opportunity lost, although the run-out chance was a little unfortunate, with Rubya Haider standing in with the wicketkeeping gloves following an physical problem to the regular keeper.

Unfortunately for the team, such fielding problems are far from a one-off. They've missed 14 catches from a potential 27 at this World Cup and display the poorest fielding effectiveness (48.1 percent) of the participating teams.

They are a side who are typically heading in the correct path – they are playing in merely their second 50-over World Cup ultimately – but poor fielding performance is a prominent issue which requires attention.