Sri Lanka beats the Bangladeshi side to preserve their World Cup campaign alive

ICC Women's World Cup, Navi Mumbai

The Lankan team 202 (48.4 overs): Perera 85 (99); Shorna Akter 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 decisive innings segment to complete a heart-stopping triumph over Bangladesh and maintain their slim aspirations of making it for the World Cup semi-finals intact.

Chasing a attainable score of 203 on a favorable wicket in Navi Mumbai, the Bangladeshi team wanted nine more runs from the final six bowls.

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

The triumph – the Lankan team's maiden of the tournament after three losses and two abandoned games against the Australian team and the Kiwi side – elevates them level on four tournament points with India and New Zealand, who face each other on Thursday.

The Bangladeshi team, on the other hand, suffered a fifth straight loss since securing victory in their tournament opener against Pakistan and have been knocked out.

While Bangladesh made the ideal beginning, with Marufa Akter taking a wicket with the first delivery of the game to dismiss Gunaratne, they were rightfully penalized for a poor fielding display.

They provided reprieves to Perera, who was dropped on three occasions, and Athapaththu.

Although Athapaththu was unable to capitalise, removed lbw for 46 just one delivery after being missed by Rabeya, Perera made Bangladesh suffer.

She scored a first international half-century, accumulating 85 from 99 bowls and building an significant 74-run partnership fifth-wicket association with De Silva.

Bangladesh, led by Shorna Akter's impressive bowling figures, pulled themselves back to the contest, with De Silva's removal in the 34th innings segment triggering a Lankan collapse from 174-4 to 202 total.

During their chase, Sri Lanka's starting bowlers Malki Madara and Udeshika Prabodhani limited Bangladesh to 23-1 in a disappointing opening overs and they were subsequently diminished to 44 with three wickets lost.

Sharmin Akter and Nigar Sultana Joty restored their score, putting on 82 runs for the fourth wicket collaboration before Sharmin retired hurt for a stubborn 64 in the 36th bowling phase.

It was in favor of Bangladesh approaching the remaining two innings segments, with merely 12 runs required.

Nevertheless, Sugandika Dasanayaka removed Ritu and conceded merely three scoring runs before the captain's decisive intervention, with Rabeya Khan, Nahida, captain Joty and Marufa all removed as the Lankan team seized the triumph at the death.

Ultimately, it was a contest of nerves. The highly experienced Athapaththu, who ushered away a few of teammates as she set herself to deliver the last over, kept her nerve. The opposition could not.

There will be numerous inquiries about Bangladesh's batting performance. They might well have been chasing around 270-280 with the Lankan team seeming at ease on 159 with four wickets down in the 30th innings segment, but in contrast the required total was significantly less.

Yet, the batting side lacked purpose from ball one, accumulating runs at less than 2.5 runs per over during the powerplay, experiencing a early batting collapse, and eventually leaving themselves too much to achieve.

But whatever problems there are with their batting approach, if they had taken their catches in the fielding department, that 203 total goal would have been substantially lower.

It required them three efforts to terminate the 72-run stand second-wicket, with keeper Joty not managing to hold a difficult catch behind the stumps to dismiss Perera on 23 runs before the captain got a reprieve from a caught and bowled chance opportunity against Rabeya.

Perera was missed again on 55 runs and 63 runs, the last attempt flying directly to Jhilik at cover field, before finally being given out leg before wicket by Shorna as she attempted to accelerate the scoring with partners being dismissed beside her.

Later in the batting effort, there was furthermore a stumping chance missed and a missed run-out, even though the second one was a little unfortunate, with Jhilik standing in with the wicketkeeping gloves due to an physical problem to Joty.

Sadly for Bangladesh, such fielding woes are far from a isolated incident. They've dropped 14 opportunities from a possible 27 opportunities at this competition and boast the lowest catching success rate (48.1%) of the eight teams.

They are a squad who are generally moving in the right direction – they are playing in only their second ODI World Cup after all – but poor fielding is a obvious concern which needs improvement.