Sri Lanka beats the Bangladeshi side to maintain their tournament hopes breathing

ICC Women's 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 win by seven runs margin

Sri Lanka took four wickets in the final innings segment to complete a nail-biting win over their opponents and preserve their faint aspirations of making it for the World Cup semi-finals alive.

Chasing a below-par score of 203 on a favorable wicket in Navi Mumbai, Bangladesh needed nine runs from the remaining six deliveries.

Yet, Lankan skipper Chamari Athapaththu took three crucial wickets in four deliveries and de Silva ran out Nahida to achieve a exciting victory for the Lankan team.

The triumph – the Lankan team's first of the competition after three losses and two no-results against the Australian team and New Zealand – elevates them level on four points with India and the New Zealand side, who face each other on the coming Thursday.

Bangladesh, on the other hand, suffered a fifth successive setback since securing victory in their tournament opener against the Pakistani team and have been knocked out.

While Bangladesh got off to the perfect start, with Marufa Akter taking a wicket with the initial ball of the game to send back Gunaratne, they were appropriately punished for a disappointing fielding display.

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

Although the Sri Lankan skipper could not capitalise, removed lbw for 46 a single bowl after being put down by Rabeya Khan, Perera made Bangladesh pay.

She scored a first international fifty, making 85 from 99 balls and building an significant 74-run stand fifth-wicket with De Silva.

The Bangladeshi team, guided by Shorna Akter's 3-27, dragged themselves back to the contest, with De Silva's wicket in the 34th innings segment triggering a Lankan batting collapse from 174 for four to 202 complete.

While batting second, the Lankan team's starting bowlers Madara and Prabodhani restricted Bangladesh to 23 with one wicket down in a uninspiring opening overs and they were later reduced to 44-3.

Sharmin Akter and Joty rebuilt their innings, putting on an 82-run partnership for the fourth wicket collaboration before Sharmin retired hurt for a resolute 64 in the 36th innings segment.

It was advantage Bangladesh approaching the final two bowling phases, with merely 12 additional runs necessary.

Yet, Sugandika Dasanayaka removed Ritu and gave away merely three scoring runs before the captain's chaos, with Rabeya, Nahida Akter, captain Joty and Marufa all removed as the Lankan team seized the win at the final moment.

Finally, it was a match of composure. The highly experienced Lankan captain, who directed away a several of fellow players as she set herself to deliver the last over, kept her composure. The opposition failed to.

There will be plenty of inquiries about Bangladesh's batting effort. They possibly have been chasing 270 to 280 with Sri Lanka looking at ease on 159 with four wickets down in the 30th over, but in contrast the target was considerably smaller.

Nevertheless, the batting side lacked purpose from ball one, making runs at under 2.5 runs per over during the initial phase, suffering a initial wicket loss, and finally forcing themselves overwhelming to achieve.

But no matter what issues there are with their batting lineup, if they had accepted their opportunities in the fielding area, that 203-run target would have been considerably lower.

It required them three attempts to break the 72-run partnership second-wicket association, with keeper Nigar Sultana being unable to grab a tough opportunity behind the stumps to remove Hasini Perera on 23 before Athapaththu was spared from a caught and bowled chance opportunity against Rabeya.

The batter was missed again on 55 runs and her score of 63, the final opportunity flying right to Jhilik at cover position, before eventually being dismissed lbw by Shorna as she tried to up the ante with teammates being dismissed beside her.

Afterwards in the game, there was additionally a failed stumping and a failed run-out, even though the run-out chance was a slightly unlucky, with Rubya Haider standing in with the wicketkeeping gloves after an injury to the regular keeper.

Regrettably for Bangladesh, such fielding problems are far from a isolated incident. They've missed 14 catches from a available 27 opportunities at this tournament and boast the worst catching success rate (48.1 percent) of the eight teams.

They are a team who are typically heading in the right direction – they are playing in just their second 50-over World Cup after all – but substandard fielding performance is a prominent concern which demands attention.