Sri Lanka overcomes Bangladesh to maintain their World Cup campaign breathing

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

Sri Lanka emerge victorious by seven runs margin

The Lankan cricket team took four crucial dismissals in the last innings segment to achieve a thrilling victory over their opponents and preserve their slim hopes of making it for the World Cup semi-finals intact.

Needing a modest total of 203 on a good batting surface in the Mumbai stadium, the Bangladeshi team required nine more runs from the last six balls.

However, Sri Lanka captain Chamari Athapaththu claimed three wickets in four deliveries and de Silva dismissed via run-out Nahida to achieve a thrilling win for Sri Lanka.

The triumph – Sri Lanka's maiden of the competition after three defeats and two no-results against Australia and the Kiwi side – moves them equal on four tournament points with the Indian team and New Zealand, who meet each other on the coming Thursday.

The Bangladeshi team, on the other hand, suffered a fifth consecutive loss since securing victory in their tournament opener against Pakistan and have been knocked out.

Even though the Bangladeshi side made the excellent commencement, with Marufa Akter taking a wicket with the first delivery of the game to send back Gunaratne, they were rightfully made to pay for a disappointing fielding display.

They offered reprieves to Hasini Perera, who was dropped three times, and the Lankan captain.

Although the Sri Lankan skipper was unable to make it count, removed leg before wicket for 46 just one delivery after being missed by Rabeya, Perera made the opposition suffer.

She scored a first international fifty, accumulating 85 from 99 balls and contributing to an crucial 74-run stand fifth-wicket association with De Silva.

The Bangladeshi team, spearheaded by Shorna's three wickets for 27 runs, pulled themselves back to the contest, with De Silva's wicket in the 34th over causing a Sri Lanka batting collapse from 174-4 to 202 all out.

In reply, Sri Lanka's initial pace attack Madara and Udeshika Prabodhani restricted Bangladesh to 23 for one in a lacklustre powerplay and they were subsequently brought down to 44 for three.

Sharmin Akter and Joty reconstructed their score, contributing an 82-run partnership for the fourth wicket before the batter retired hurt for a stubborn 64 in the 36th innings segment.

It was in favor of Bangladesh heading into the last two bowling phases, with just 12 additional runs necessary.

Nevertheless, Dasanayaka sent back Ritu Moni and gave away only three scoring runs before the captain's chaos, with Rabeya Khan, Nahida Akter, captain Joty and Marufa all sent back as Sri Lanka snatched the victory at the final moment.

In the end, it was a game of nerve. The highly experienced Athapaththu, who moved aside a handful of teammates as she got ready to bowl the decisive over, maintained her nerve. The opposition failed to.

There will be many questions about the team's batting effort. They possibly have been needing around 270-280 with Sri Lanka looking settled on 159 for four in the 30th over, but rather the required total was considerably smaller.

However, Bangladesh lacked purpose from the start, scoring at under 2.5 runs per over during the opening overs, undergoing a early batting collapse, and finally leaving themselves excessive to do.

But whatever issues there are with their batting approach, if they had accepted their catches in the fielding department, that 203 total objective would have been substantially lower.

It needed them three tries to break the 72-run partnership second-wicket, with wicketkeeper Nigar Sultana not managing to hold a tough chance as wicketkeeper to remove Perera on her score of 23 before Athapaththu was spared from a return catch chance against Rabeya Khan.

The batter was missed once more on her score of 55 and 63, the latter chance traveling straight to Rubya Haider Jhilik at cover, before finally being dismissed leg before wicket by Shorna Akter as she attempted to up the ante with partners being dismissed near her.

Afterwards in the batting effort, there was additionally a stumping chance missed and a missed run-out, while the run-out chance was a little unfortunate, with Jhilik standing in with the gloves due to an physical problem to the regular keeper.

Unfortunately for Bangladesh, such fielding woes are nowhere near a single occurrence. They've missed 14 chances from a available 27 at this competition and have the poorest catching success rate (less than 50%) of the participating teams.

They are a squad who are overall progressing in the proper way – they are competing in just their second ODI World Cup after all – but poor fielding standards is a obvious concern which requires improvement.