The Lankan team overcomes Bangladesh to keep their World Cup campaign ongoing

ICC Women's World Cup, Navi Mumbai

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

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

Sri Lanka win by seven runs margin

The Lankan cricket team took four wickets in the decisive innings segment to achieve a nail-biting win over Bangladesh and preserve their faint aspirations of making it for the World Cup semi-finals ongoing.

Needing a modest target of 203 on a good batting surface in Navi Mumbai, Bangladesh required nine more runs from the last six bowls.

Nevertheless, Lankan skipper Chamari Athapaththu claimed three important dismissals in four bowls and Nilakshi de Silva dismissed via run-out Nahida Akter to secure a dramatic success for Sri Lanka.

The victory – Sri Lanka's maiden of the tournament after three unsuccessful matches and two abandoned games against the Australian team and the Kiwi side – moves them equal on four tournament points with India and New Zealand, who confront each other on the coming Thursday.

The Bangladeshi team, in contrast, suffered a fifth straight loss since securing victory in their initial game against the Pakistani team and have been removed from contention.

Even though the Bangladeshi side got off to the perfect start, with Marufa taking a wicket with the initial ball of the match to dismiss Gunaratne, they were rightfully punished for a subpar fielding effort.

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

While the Sri Lankan skipper failed to capitalise, dismissed leg before wicket for 46 just one delivery after being dropped by Rabeya, Hasini Perera made Bangladesh regret it.

She registered a first international 50-run score, making 85 from 99 balls and contributing to an crucial 74-run fifth-wicket association with De Silva.

Bangladesh, spearheaded by Shorna's three wickets for 27 runs, dragged themselves back into the game, with Nilakshi's dismissal in the 34th over triggering a Sri Lanka collapse from 174-4 to 202 total.

During their chase, Sri Lanka's opening bowlers Madara and Prabodhani contained the opposition to 23 with one wicket down in a disappointing initial phase and they were later diminished to 44 with three wickets lost.

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

It was advantage the chasing team entering the remaining two bowling phases, with just 12 runs required.

However, Sugandika Dasanayaka removed Ritu Moni and conceded just three scoring runs before the captain's decisive intervention, with Rabeya Khan, Nahida Akter, skipper Joty and Marufa Akter all dismissed as the Lankan team snatched the win at the final moment.

In the end, it was a match of nerves. The seasoned Athapaththu, who moved aside a several of teammates as she set herself to bowl the last over, held her nerve. Bangladesh failed to.

There will be many questions about the team's batting performance. They might well have been chasing around 270-280 with the Lankan team seeming comfortable on 159 with four wickets down in the 30th innings segment, but in contrast the chase was much lower.

Yet, the batting side displayed insufficient purpose from the very beginning, accumulating runs at below 2.5 runs each over during the initial phase, undergoing a initial wicket loss, and eventually forcing themselves too much to do.

But whatever problems there are with their batting approach, if they had accepted their chances in the fielding area, that 203-run target objective would have been substantially lower.

It required them three attempts to break the 72-run partnership second-wicket association, with wicketkeeper Nigar Sultana failing to hold a tough chance behind the stumps to send back Perera on 23 runs before Athapaththu survived from a caught and bowled chance chance against Rabeya.

The batter was spilled again on 55 and 63, the latter chance going right to Rubya Haider Jhilik at cover position, before eventually being dismissed leg before wicket by Shorna Akter as she attempted to up the ante with batting partners getting out beside her.

Subsequently in the batting effort, there was additionally a missed stumping and a missed run-out, while the run-out chance was a little unlucky, with Rubya Haider substituting with the keeping duties following an physical problem to the regular keeper.

Regrettably for Bangladesh, such fielding woes are not at all a single occurrence. They've dropped 14 chances from a possible 27 chances at this tournament and display the worst fielding effectiveness (48.1 percent) of the eight teams.

They are a squad who are generally heading in the correct path – they are participating in only their second one-day World Cup in the end – but inadequate fielding is a obvious issue which needs attention.