The Lankan team beats Bangladesh to preserve their campaign ongoing

Women's Cricket World Cup, Navi Mumbai

Sri Lanka 202 (48.4 overs): Hasini Perera 85 (99); Shorna 3-27

The Bangladeshi team 195-9 (50 overs): Joty 77 (98); Chamari Athapaththu 4-42

The Lankan side win by seven runs

Sri Lanka claimed four wickets in the decisive over to complete a thrilling win over their opponents and preserve their narrow aspirations of qualifying for the World Cup semi-finals ongoing.

Pursuing a attainable score of 203 on a favorable wicket in the Mumbai stadium, Bangladesh wanted nine more runs from the final six deliveries.

However, Lankan skipper Athapaththu took three wickets in four deliveries and Nilakshi de Silva dismissed via run-out Nahida to secure a thrilling victory for the Lankan team.

The victory – the Lankan team's maiden of the competition after three losses and two no-results against the Australian team and the Kiwi side – moves them equal on four match points with the Indian team and New Zealand, who meet each other on the coming Thursday.

The Bangladeshi team, in contrast, suffered a fifth successive loss since winning their tournament opener against the Pakistani team and have been removed from contention.

Although Bangladesh got off to the excellent commencement, with Marufa taking a wicket with the opening bowl of the match to send back Vishmi Gunaratne, they were rightfully punished for a disappointing fielding effort.

They offered second chances to Perera, who was dropped three times, and the Lankan captain.

Even though Athapaththu failed to capitalise, sent back leg before wicket for 46 a single bowl after being put down by Rabeya, Perera forced the opposition regret it.

She achieved a maiden international half-century, making 85 from 99 balls and building an crucial 74-run stand fifth-wicket collaboration with De Silva.

The Bangladeshi team, guided by Shorna's three wickets for 27 runs, dragged themselves back in the contest, with Nilakshi's wicket in the 34th over causing a Lankan collapse from 174 for four to 202 all out.

During their chase, the Lankan team's initial pace attack Madara and Prabodhani restricted the opposition to 23 for one in a disappointing opening overs and they were subsequently diminished to 44 for three.

Sharmin Akter and Joty reconstructed their innings, putting on an 82-run partnership for the fourth wicket stand before Sharmin left the field injured for a determined 64 in the 36th over.

It was in favor of Bangladesh heading into the final two innings segments, with merely 12 more runs required.

Nevertheless, Dasanayaka removed Ritu and allowed merely three runs before the captain's chaos, with Rabeya Khan, Nahida, skipper Joty and Marufa all removed as Sri Lanka grabbed the win at the death.

Finally, it was a contest of nerve. The highly experienced Athapaththu, who directed away a few of team-mates as she prepared to deliver the decisive over, maintained hers. Bangladesh could not.

There will be numerous questions about Bangladesh's batting effort. They could easily have been needing 270 to 280 with Sri Lanka seeming settled on 159 for four in the 30th over, but instead the required total was considerably smaller.

Yet, the batting side displayed insufficient purpose from ball one, scoring at less than 2.5 runs per over during the powerplay, suffering a initial wicket loss, and ultimately forcing themselves excessive to do.

But whatever issues there are with their batting, if they had seized their opportunities in the fielding department, that 203-run target target would have been substantially smaller.

It required them three efforts to break the 72-run partnership second-wicket association, with wicketkeeper Joty not managing to grab a difficult chance while keeping to send back Hasini Perera on 23 before the captain was spared from a caught and bowled chance possibility against Rabeya Khan.

The batter was dropped once more on her score of 55 and 63, the final opportunity going straight to Jhilik at cover, before eventually being given out leg before wicket by Shorna Akter as she tried to up the ante with partners being dismissed near her.

Subsequently in the game, there was additionally a missed stumping and a missed run-out, although the run-out chance was a somewhat unfortunate, with Rubya Haider deputising with the wicketkeeping gloves following an injury to the regular keeper.

Sadly for the team, such fielding issues are nowhere near a one-off. They've missed 14 opportunities from a possible 27 at this tournament and have the worst catching success rate (48.1%) of the participating teams.

They are a side who are generally heading in the proper way – they are playing in only their second one-day World Cup ultimately – but poor fielding performance is a prominent problem which needs focus.