Sri Lanka beats the Bangladeshi side to maintain their World Cup campaign alive

Women's Cricket World Cup, Mumbai

The Lankan team 202 (48.4 overs): 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

The Lankan cricket team claimed four wickets in the final over to achieve a thrilling win over their opponents and maintain their slim hopes of qualifying for the World Cup semi-finals ongoing.

Chasing a modest score of 203 on a favorable wicket in Navi Mumbai, Bangladesh required nine runs from the final six deliveries.

Nevertheless, Lankan skipper Athapaththu secured three wickets in four balls and de Silva ran out Nahida to bring about a thrilling win for Sri Lanka.

The win – Sri Lanka's initial of the World Cup after three defeats and two abandoned games against the Australian team and the Kiwi side – pushes them equal on four points with the Indian team and the New Zealand side, who confront each other on the coming Thursday.

Bangladesh, in contrast, experienced a fifth successive setback since winning their tournament opener against the Pakistani team and have been eliminated.

Although the Bangladeshi side made the perfect start, with Marufa Akter taking a wicket with the first delivery of the game to dismiss Vishmi Gunaratne, they were deservedly punished for a disappointing fielding effort.

They provided lifelines to Hasini Perera, who was missed three times, and Athapaththu.

Although Athapaththu could not take advantage, dismissed lbw for 46 just one delivery after being put down by Rabeya, Hasini Perera made the opposition regret it.

She scored a first international half-century, accumulating 85 from 99 balls and contributing to an important 74-run stand fifth-wicket collaboration with De Silva.

The Bangladeshi team, led by Shorna's impressive bowling figures, dragged themselves back to the contest, with Nilakshi's removal in the 34th bowling segment triggering a Lankan batting collapse from 174-4 to 202 all out.

In reply, Sri Lanka's starting bowlers Madara and Udeshika Prabodhani limited Bangladesh to 23 for one in a disappointing initial phase and they were later diminished to 44-3.

Sharmin and Joty restored their batting effort, adding 82 runs for the fourth wicket before the batter left the field injured for a determined 64 in the 36th over.

It was advantage Bangladesh approaching the final two overs, with just 12 runs necessary.

Nevertheless, Sugandika Dasanayaka removed Ritu Moni and conceded merely three scoring runs before Athapaththu's chaos, with Rabeya Khan, Nahida Akter, skipper Joty and Marufa Akter all sent back as Sri Lanka seized the win at the death.

In the end, it was a match of nerves. The highly experienced Athapaththu, who directed away a several of teammates as she prepared to deliver the decisive over, held hers. Bangladesh failed to.

There will be numerous questions about Bangladesh's batting performance. They could easily have been needing around 270-280 with Sri Lanka appearing at ease on 159 for four in the 30th innings segment, but instead the required total was considerably smaller.

However, the batting side lacked purpose from the very beginning, accumulating runs at under 2.5 scoring rate during the opening overs, suffering a top-order collapse, and ultimately forcing themselves overwhelming to accomplish.

But no matter what problems there are with their batting approach, if they had taken their catches in the field, that 203-run target would have been substantially smaller.

It took them three attempts to terminate the 72-run stand second-wicket, with wicketkeeper Joty not managing to take a challenging catch as wicketkeeper to send back Hasini Perera on her score of 23 before Athapaththu survived from a caught and bowled possibility against Rabeya.

The batter was missed again on 55 runs and her score of 63, the latter chance traveling right to Jhilik at cover, before ultimately being trapped leg before wicket by Shorna as she sought to accelerate the scoring with partners falling near her.

Afterwards in the game, there was furthermore a missed stumping and a failed run-out, while the latter was a slightly regrettable, with Jhilik substituting with the keeping duties due to an physical problem to the regular keeper.

Regrettably for Bangladesh, such fielding problems are far from a single occurrence. They've dropped 14 chances from a potential 27 opportunities at this competition and have the worst fielding effectiveness (48.1 percent) of the competing sides.

They are a team who are generally progressing in the right direction – they are competing in only their second ODI World Cup in the end – but inadequate fielding performance is a glaring concern which demands focus.