Sri Lanka defeats the Bangladeshi side to maintain their campaign ongoing

Women's Cricket World Cup, Mumbai

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

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

The Lankan side win by seven runs

The Lankan cricket team took four wickets in the last innings segment to complete a heart-stopping win over their opponents and maintain their narrow hopes of qualifying for the tournament knockout stage alive.

Pursuing a below-par total of 203 on a batting-friendly pitch in the Mumbai stadium, the Bangladeshi team required nine additional runs from the last six balls.

Nevertheless, Sri Lanka captain Chamari Athapaththu secured three wickets in four bowls and Nilakshi de Silva ran out Nahida to bring about a exciting win for Sri Lanka.

The win – Sri Lanka's first of the World Cup after three defeats and two washed-out matches against the Australian team and New Zealand – moves them equal on four match points with the Indian team and New Zealand, who confront each other on the coming Thursday.

Bangladesh, on the other hand, endured a fifth successive setback since securing victory in their tournament opener against the Pakistani team and have been knocked out.

While Bangladesh got off to the ideal beginning, with Marufa Akter taking a wicket with the opening bowl of the match to send back Gunaratne, they were rightfully penalized for a subpar fielding display.

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

Even though the Sri Lankan skipper could not make it count, sent back leg before wicket for 46 a single bowl after being dropped by Rabeya, Hasini Perera made the opposition suffer.

She scored a debut international half-century, making 85 from 99 bowls and sharing an important 74-run stand fifth-wicket with De Silva.

The Bangladeshi team, led by Shorna Akter's impressive bowling figures, pulled themselves back in the contest, with Nilakshi's wicket in the 34th over triggering a Sri Lanka downfall from 174 with four wickets down to 202 complete.

During their chase, Sri Lanka's opening bowlers Madara and Udeshika Prabodhani limited the opposition to 23 with one wicket down in a uninspiring initial phase and they were subsequently diminished to 44 for three.

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

It was advantage the chasing team approaching the final two overs, with merely 12 runs required.

However, Sugandika Dasanayaka sent back Ritu Moni and allowed merely three scoring runs before the captain's decisive intervention, with Rabeya, Nahida Akter, captain Joty and Marufa all sent back as the Lankan team seized the triumph at the final moment.

Finally, it was a match of nerve. The very experienced Lankan captain, who ushered away a few of fellow players as she set herself to bowl the final over, maintained her composure. Bangladesh could not.

There will be many inquiries about Bangladesh's batting display. They possibly have been needing 270 to 280 with the Lankan team appearing comfortable on 159 with four wickets down in the 30th innings segment, but rather the target was much lower.

Nevertheless, Bangladesh displayed insufficient purpose from the start, scoring at less than 2.5 runs each over during the opening overs, suffering a early batting collapse, and finally forcing themselves overwhelming to accomplish.

But whatever problems there are with their batting, if they had seized their catches in the field, that 203 total goal would have been considerably smaller.

It required them three attempts to end the 72-run stand second-wicket, with wicketkeeper Joty being unable to take a tough chance behind the stumps to remove Hasini Perera on 23 runs before Athapaththu got a reprieve from a caught and bowled chance against Rabeya.

Perera was missed further on 55 and 63, the last attempt going directly to Rubya Haider Jhilik at cover position, before ultimately being given out leg before wicket by Shorna Akter as she tried to up the ante with partners falling near her.

Later in the game, there was additionally a failed stumping and a failed run-out, even though the run-out chance was a slightly unlucky, with Rubya Haider substituting with the gloves due to an injury to the regular keeper.

Sadly for Bangladesh, such fielding problems are not at all a single occurrence. They've missed 14 chances from a potential 27 chances at this competition and boast the lowest catch efficiency (less than 50%) of the eight teams.

They are a side who are overall moving in the proper way – they are participating in just their second one-day World Cup ultimately – but substandard fielding performance is a obvious problem which needs improvement.