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

ICC Women's 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); Athapaththu 4-42

Sri Lanka emerge victorious by seven runs

The Lankan cricket team took four wickets in the final over to achieve a heart-stopping triumph over their opponents and maintain their faint chances of qualifying for the World Cup semi-finals intact.

Chasing a modest score of 203 on a favorable wicket in the Mumbai stadium, Bangladesh needed nine more runs from the remaining six balls.

Yet, Lankan skipper Chamari Athapaththu claimed three wickets in four deliveries and Nilakshi de Silva ran out Nahida to achieve a exciting victory for Sri Lanka.

The triumph – Sri Lanka's maiden of the competition after three defeats and two abandoned games against the Australian team and the Kiwi side – pushes them equal on four tournament points with the Indian team and the New Zealand side, who meet each other on the coming Thursday.

The Bangladeshi team, however, endured a fifth straight defeat since securing victory in their first match against the Pakistani team and have been knocked out.

Although the Bangladeshi side made the excellent commencement, with Marufa taking a wicket with the opening bowl of the match to send back Vishmi Gunaratne, they were appropriately punished for a subpar fielding effort.

They offered lifelines to Hasini Perera, who was missed multiple times, and Athapaththu.

Even though Athapaththu failed to capitalise, removed leg before wicket for 46 just one delivery after being dropped by Rabeya Khan, Hasini Perera forced the opposition suffer.

She registered a first international fifty, scoring 85 from 99 deliveries and building an significant 74-run partnership fifth-wicket collaboration with Nilakshi de Silva.

The Bangladeshi team, spearheaded by Shorna Akter's impressive bowling figures, dragged themselves back in the contest, with Nilakshi's wicket in the 34th over initiating a Lankan collapse from 174-4 to 202 all out.

In reply, the Lankan team's opening bowlers Madara and Prabodhani limited the opposition to 23-1 in a lacklustre opening overs and they were afterwards diminished to 44-3.

Sharmin and Nigar Sultana Joty reconstructed their score, putting on an 82-run partnership for the fourth wicket before the batter retired hurt for a resolute 64 in the 36th innings segment.

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

However, Sugandika Dasanayaka dismissed Ritu and allowed merely three scoring runs before Athapaththu's decisive intervention, with Rabeya Khan, Nahida, skipper Joty and Marufa all sent back as the Lankan team grabbed the win at the death.

Ultimately, it was a match of composure. The highly experienced Lankan captain, who ushered away a several of team-mates as she prepared to bowl the decisive over, held her nerve. Bangladesh did not.

There will be numerous questions about Bangladesh's batting performance. They possibly have been needing 270 to 280 with the Lankan team seeming at ease on 159-4 in the 30th innings segment, but instead the target was significantly less.

However, Bangladesh lacked intent from ball one, scoring at under 2.5 runs each over during the powerplay, undergoing a top-order collapse, and ultimately leaving themselves too much to achieve.

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

It needed them three tries to terminate the 72-run partnership second-wicket collaboration, with wicketkeeper Nigar Sultana being unable to take a challenging opportunity while keeping to dismiss Hasini Perera on 23 before the captain got a reprieve from a caught and bowled chance opportunity against Rabeya.

The batter was missed once more on 55 runs and her score of 63, the final opportunity flying directly to Rubya Haider Jhilik at cover position, before finally being trapped leg before wicket by Shorna Akter as she sought to increase the tempo with partners getting out around her.

Afterwards in the game, there was furthermore a failed stumping and a failed run-out, while the second one was a somewhat unlucky, with Jhilik deputising with the keeping duties due to an fitness issue to the regular keeper.

Unfortunately for Bangladesh, such fielding problems are nowhere near a single occurrence. They've failed to catch 14 catches from a possible 27 opportunities at this World Cup and boast the lowest fielding effectiveness (48.1 percent) of the eight teams.

They are a squad who are typically moving in the correct path – they are competing in only their second 50-over World Cup after all – but substandard fielding is a glaring issue which needs focus.