Sri Lanka beats the Bangladeshi side to keep their tournament hopes ongoing

ICC Women's World Cup, Mumbai

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

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

Sri Lanka emerge victorious by seven runs

The Lankan cricket team secured four wickets in the final over to seal a heart-stopping win over Bangladesh and preserve their narrow aspirations of making it for the tournament knockout stage alive.

Needing a attainable target of 203 on a good batting surface in the Mumbai stadium, the Bangladeshi team needed nine additional runs from the last six deliveries.

However, Lankan skipper Athapaththu claimed three wickets in four deliveries and Nilakshi de Silva ran out Nahida to achieve a exciting success for the Lankan team.

The victory – Sri Lanka's initial of the tournament after three losses and two washed-out matches against Australia and the Kiwi side – moves them tied on four match points with the Indian team and the New Zealand side, who meet each other on the coming Thursday.

Bangladesh, in contrast, endured a fifth consecutive loss since winning their initial game against Pakistan and have been removed from contention.

Even though the Bangladeshi side got off to the ideal beginning, with Marufa striking with the opening bowl of the game to dismiss Gunaratne, they were appropriately penalized for a subpar fielding performance.

They offered second chances to Perera, who was missed multiple times, and the Lankan captain.

While the Sri Lankan skipper could not make it count, sent back lbw for 46 a single bowl after being put down by Rabeya Khan, Perera forced the opposition suffer.

She scored a maiden international fifty, accumulating 85 from 99 deliveries and contributing to an significant 74-run partnership fifth-wicket with De Silva.

The Bangladeshi team, spearheaded by Shorna's impressive bowling figures, dragged themselves back to the match, with De Silva's removal in the 34th bowling segment triggering a Lankan batting collapse from 174 for four to 202 complete.

In reply, the Lankan team's opening bowlers Madara and Udeshika Prabodhani limited Bangladesh to 23 for one in a disappointing opening overs and they were later reduced to 44-3.

Sharmin and Joty restored their score, putting on 82 for the fourth wicket collaboration before Sharmin withdrew due to injury for a determined 64 in the 36th over.

It was advantage Bangladesh entering the last two innings segments, with merely 12 additional runs required.

Nevertheless, Sugandika Dasanayaka dismissed Ritu Moni and gave away just three runs before Athapaththu's dramatic spell, with Rabeya, Nahida Akter, skipper Joty and Marufa all removed as the Lankan team grabbed the win at the very end.

In the end, it was a contest of composure. The very experienced Lankan captain, who directed away a handful of fellow players as she got ready to bowl the decisive over, held her nerve. The opposition failed to.

There will be numerous questions about the team's batting performance. They could easily have been chasing 270 to 280 with Sri Lanka looking settled on 159 with four wickets down in the 30th bowling phase, but instead the chase was considerably smaller.

However, the batting side lacked intent from ball one, making runs at below 2.5 scoring rate during the powerplay, suffering a early batting collapse, and ultimately leaving themselves overwhelming to accomplish.

But no matter what problems there are with their batting lineup, if they had accepted their catches in the field, that 203-run goal would have been considerably less.

It took them three attempts to break the 72-run stand second-wicket collaboration, with wicketkeeper Nigar Sultana being unable to grab a challenging chance as wicketkeeper to send back Hasini Perera on 23 runs before Athapaththu got a reprieve from a return catch opportunity against Rabeya Khan.

Perera was spilled once more on 55 and her score of 63, the last attempt traveling straight to Jhilik at cover position, before ultimately being dismissed lbw by Shorna as she sought to accelerate the scoring with partners getting out around her.

Subsequently in the innings, there was additionally a failed stumping and a failed run-out, even though the second one was a somewhat unfortunate, with Jhilik standing in with the gloves following an physical problem to Joty.

Regrettably for Bangladesh, such fielding issues are nowhere near a single occurrence. They've dropped 14 opportunities from a potential 27 opportunities at this World Cup and boast the lowest catching success rate (48.1 percent) of the eight teams.

They are a team who are overall progressing in the proper way – they are playing in just their second ODI World Cup after all – but inadequate fielding standards is a obvious problem which needs improvement.