Sri Lanka beats the Bangladeshi side to keep their campaign alive

Women's Cricket World Cup, Mumbai

The Lankan team 202 (48.4 overs): Perera 85 (99); Shorna 3-27

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

The Lankan side emerge victorious by seven runs

The Lankan cricket team claimed four crucial dismissals in the last innings segment to achieve a heart-stopping triumph over their opponents and keep their narrow chances of qualifying for the tournament knockout stage alive.

Chasing a attainable target of 203 on a good batting surface in the Mumbai stadium, the Bangladeshi team wanted nine runs from the final six bowls.

Nevertheless, Lankan skipper Chamari Athapaththu took three wickets in four deliveries and de Silva dismissed via run-out Nahida to secure a exciting victory for Sri Lanka.

The triumph – Sri Lanka's maiden of the tournament after three defeats and two washed-out matches against Australia and the Kiwi side – pushes them tied on four tournament points with the Indian team and the New Zealand side, who confront each other on the coming Thursday.

The Bangladeshi team, however, endured a fifth successive loss since securing victory in their initial game against the Pakistani team and have been knocked out.

Although the Bangladeshi side made the excellent commencement, with Marufa striking with the initial ball of the match to dismiss Gunaratne, they were deservedly punished for a poor fielding effort.

They gifted reprieves to Hasini Perera, who was missed three times, and the Lankan captain.

While the Sri Lankan skipper was unable to take advantage, removed leg before wicket for 46 a single bowl after being missed by Rabeya Khan, Perera forced Bangladesh suffer.

She achieved a first international fifty, accumulating 85 from 99 deliveries and building an crucial 74-run stand fifth-wicket association with De Silva.

The Bangladeshi team, led by Shorna Akter's impressive bowling figures, pulled themselves back into the match, with Nilakshi's wicket in the 34th innings segment initiating a Sri Lanka collapse from 174 for four to 202 total.

In reply, the Lankan team's opening bowlers Madara and Udeshika Prabodhani limited Bangladesh to 23-1 in a disappointing opening overs and they were afterwards brought down to 44 for three.

Sharmin Akter and Joty restored their score, contributing 82 runs for the fourth wicket before the batter retired hurt for a stubborn 64 in the 36th innings segment.

It was in favor of Bangladesh entering the last two innings segments, with only 12 runs needed.

Yet, Sugandika Dasanayaka dismissed Ritu and gave away just three scoring runs before Athapaththu's chaos, with Rabeya, Nahida Akter, skipper Joty and Marufa Akter all removed as the Lankan team snatched the win at the very end.

Ultimately, it was a match of nerves. The highly experienced Lankan captain, who moved aside a few of fellow players as she set herself to deliver the last over, kept her nerve. The opposition failed to.

There will be many questions about Bangladesh's batting performance. They could easily have been pursuing 270 to 280 with the Lankan team appearing at ease on 159-4 in the 30th over, but instead the required total was significantly less.

However, the batting side showed little purpose from ball one, accumulating runs at below 2.5 scoring rate during the opening overs, suffering a initial wicket loss, and finally forcing themselves excessive to do.

But whatever difficulties there are with their batting approach, if they had taken their opportunities in the field, that 203 total target would have been significantly less.

It took them three efforts to terminate the 72-run second-wicket collaboration, with keeper Nigar Sultana not managing to take a tough chance as wicketkeeper to remove Hasini Perera on 23 runs before Athapaththu got a reprieve from a caught and bowled chance against Rabeya.

Perera was missed again on 55 and 63 runs, the last attempt traveling straight to Jhilik at cover position, before ultimately being trapped leg before wicket by Shorna as she tried to accelerate the scoring with teammates falling beside her.

Later in the batting effort, there was additionally a missed stumping and a failed run-out, although the latter was a little unlucky, with Rubya Haider substituting with the wicketkeeping gloves following an injury to the regular keeper.

Regrettably for the team, such fielding woes are nowhere near a isolated incident. They've missed 14 chances from a potential 27 at this tournament and boast the worst catching success rate (48.1%) of the eight teams.

They are a team who are overall moving in the proper way – they are participating in just their second ODI World Cup in the end – but inadequate fielding is a obvious problem which requires improvement.