Sri Lanka beats the Bangladeshi side to preserve their World Cup campaign ongoing

ICC Women's World Cup, Mumbai

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

Bangladesh 195-9 (50 overs): Joty 77 (98); Athapaththu 4-42

The Lankan side emerge victorious by seven runs margin

Sri Lanka claimed four wickets in the decisive over to seal a heart-stopping triumph over Bangladesh and keep their slim hopes of making it for the World Cup semi-finals ongoing.

Pursuing a attainable total of 203 on a favorable wicket in Navi Mumbai, Bangladesh required nine additional runs from the final six deliveries.

However, Lankan skipper Chamari Athapaththu secured three crucial wickets in four balls and Nilakshi de Silva ran out Nahida to achieve a exciting success for the Lankan team.

The victory – the Lankan team's first of the World Cup after three unsuccessful matches and two no-results against Australia and the Kiwi side – pushes them level on four points with India and the New Zealand side, who face each other on Thursday.

The Bangladeshi team, in contrast, endured a fifth consecutive loss since securing victory in their initial game against the Pakistani team and have been knocked out.

Even though Bangladesh got off to the excellent commencement, with Marufa Akter taking a wicket with the initial ball of the encounter to remove Gunaratne, they were rightfully made to pay for a subpar fielding display.

They provided lifelines to Perera, who was dropped on three occasions, and Athapaththu.

Even though the Sri Lankan skipper was unable to take advantage, dismissed leg before wicket for 46 just one delivery after being put down by Rabeya, Hasini Perera forced Bangladesh pay.

She achieved a debut international fifty, accumulating 85 from 99 bowls and building an crucial 74-run partnership fifth-wicket with De Silva.

The Bangladeshi team, guided by Shorna Akter's three wickets for 27 runs, dragged themselves back into the game, with De Silva's dismissal in the 34th bowling segment triggering a Lankan downfall from 174 with four wickets down to 202 all out.

In reply, Sri Lanka's opening bowlers Malki Madara and Udeshika Prabodhani restricted the opposition to 23 for one in a disappointing opening overs and they were subsequently brought down to 44-3.

Sharmin Akter and Nigar Sultana Joty reconstructed their batting effort, adding 82 runs for the fourth wicket stand before Sharmin retired hurt for a determined 64 in the 36th over.

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

However, Sugandika Dasanayaka dismissed Ritu and gave away just three scoring runs before the captain's chaos, with Rabeya, Nahida, skipper Joty and Marufa all removed as Sri Lanka grabbed the triumph at the final moment.

Finally, it was a match of composure. The highly experienced Lankan captain, who moved aside a handful of fellow players as she prepared to deliver the final over, held her nerve. The opposition failed to.

There will be numerous questions about Bangladesh's batting effort. They might well have been pursuing around 270-280 with the Lankan team appearing at ease on 159-4 in the 30th bowling phase, but rather the required total was much lower.

Yet, Bangladesh displayed insufficient purpose from ball one, accumulating runs at below 2.5 scoring rate during the initial phase, undergoing a early batting collapse, and finally leaving themselves excessive to accomplish.

But no matter what problems there are with their batting lineup, if they had taken their chances in the fielding department, that 203-run target objective would have been considerably lower.

It needed them three attempts to break the 72-run stand second-wicket association, with keeper Nigar Sultana failing to take a difficult catch as wicketkeeper to remove Hasini Perera on 23 runs before Athapaththu got a reprieve from a caught and bowled possibility against Rabeya.

Perera was spilled once more on 55 and 63 runs, the last attempt flying straight to Jhilik at cover position, before finally being trapped lbw by Shorna as she tried to up the ante with teammates falling around her.

Afterwards in the game, there was furthermore a stumping chance missed and a missed run-out, even though the second one was a slightly unfortunate, with Rubya Haider standing in with the keeping duties due to an fitness issue to the regular keeper.

Regrettably for Bangladesh, such fielding woes are not at all a isolated incident. They've dropped 14 catches from a possible 27 opportunities at this competition and boast the lowest catch efficiency (48.1 percent) of the participating teams.

They are a side who are overall moving in the correct path – they are playing in just their second 50-over World Cup after all – but substandard fielding standards is a prominent concern which requires attention.