Sri Lanka defeats Bangladesh to preserve their World Cup campaign breathing

Women's Cricket World Cup, Navi Mumbai

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

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

Sri Lanka win by seven runs margin

The Lankan cricket team secured four wickets in the decisive over to achieve a thrilling victory over Bangladesh and preserve their narrow chances of making it for the World Cup semi-finals ongoing.

Chasing a modest score of 203 on a good batting surface in Navi Mumbai, the Bangladeshi team required nine runs from the remaining six balls.

Nevertheless, Lankan skipper Chamari Athapaththu secured three wickets in four bowls and Nilakshi de Silva dismissed via run-out Nahida to bring about a thrilling victory for Sri Lanka.

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

The Bangladeshi team, however, experienced a fifth consecutive defeat since winning their initial game against the Pakistani team and have been eliminated.

Even though Bangladesh made the excellent commencement, with Marufa Akter taking a wicket with the opening bowl of the encounter to remove Vishmi Gunaratne, they were appropriately punished for a subpar fielding display.

They provided lifelines to Hasini Perera, who was missed multiple times, and Athapaththu.

Even though the Sri Lankan skipper could not make it count, removed leg before wicket for 46 just one delivery after being dropped by Rabeya, Hasini Perera made Bangladesh pay.

She scored a first international half-century, scoring 85 from 99 deliveries and sharing an important 74-run fifth-wicket with De Silva.

The Bangladeshi team, led by Shorna's 3-27, pulled themselves back to the game, with De Silva's wicket in the 34th innings segment causing a Sri Lanka collapse from 174 for four to 202 complete.

While batting second, Sri Lanka's initial pace attack Malki Madara and Prabodhani restricted the opposition to 23 with one wicket down in a lacklustre opening overs and they were subsequently brought down to 44 for three.

Sharmin and Nigar Sultana Joty rebuilt their score, contributing 82 runs for the fourth wicket stand before Sharmin withdrew due to injury for a resolute 64 in the 36th bowling phase.

It was advantage Bangladesh entering the last two bowling phases, with only 12 more runs needed.

Nevertheless, Dasanayaka sent back Ritu and conceded just three scoring runs before the captain's decisive intervention, with Rabeya, Nahida, captain Joty and Marufa Akter all dismissed as the Lankan team snatched the victory at the final moment.

Ultimately, it was a game of nerve. The seasoned Athapaththu, who directed away a few of fellow players as she prepared to deliver the last over, held her nerve. Bangladesh failed to.

There will be plenty of inquiries about Bangladesh's batting performance. They might well have been pursuing 270 to 280 with the Lankan team seeming comfortable on 159-4 in the 30th bowling phase, but in contrast the target was significantly less.

Nevertheless, Bangladesh displayed insufficient aggression from the very beginning, accumulating runs at below 2.5 scoring rate during the powerplay, experiencing a early batting collapse, and finally forcing themselves excessive to accomplish.

But whatever problems there are with their batting approach, if they had seized their catches in the fielding department, that 203-run target objective would have been considerably smaller.

It needed them three tries to end the 72-run partnership second-wicket collaboration, with keeper Nigar Sultana not managing to take a difficult catch as wicketkeeper to remove Perera on 23 runs before the captain got a reprieve from a return catch possibility against Rabeya.

The batter was missed further on her score of 55 and her score of 63, the last attempt flying right to Jhilik at cover position, before ultimately being dismissed leg before wicket by Shorna as she sought to up the ante with partners getting out beside her.

Later in the innings, there was also a failed stumping and a run-out opportunity lost, while the run-out chance was a slightly regrettable, with Rubya Haider standing in with the keeping duties after an physical problem to the regular keeper.

Sadly for Bangladesh, such fielding woes are nowhere near a single occurrence. They've dropped 14 chances from a available 27 chances at this World Cup and boast the worst catch efficiency (48.1%) of the eight teams.

They are a squad who are generally moving in the proper way – they are playing in just their second 50-over World Cup in the end – but substandard fielding performance is a obvious issue which requires focus.