Sri Lanka beats Bangladesh to preserve their World Cup tournament hopes breathing

ICC Women's World Cup, Mumbai

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

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

Sri Lanka emerge victorious by seven runs

The Lankan cricket team secured four crucial dismissals in the last innings segment to achieve a nail-biting win over their opponents and maintain their slim hopes of qualifying for the World Cup semi-finals ongoing.

Needing a modest total of 203 on a favorable wicket in the Mumbai stadium, the Bangladeshi team needed nine additional runs from the last six deliveries.

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

The victory – the Lankan team's initial of the tournament after three defeats and two abandoned games against the Australian team and the Kiwi side – moves them level on four match points with the Indian team and New Zealand, who face each other on Thursday.

The Bangladeshi team, on the other hand, endured a fifth consecutive setback since securing victory in their tournament opener against the Pakistani team and have been removed from contention.

Even though the Bangladeshi side made the ideal beginning, with Marufa striking with the opening bowl of the match to send back Vishmi Gunaratne, they were rightfully penalized for a subpar fielding effort.

They provided reprieves to Hasini Perera, who was missed multiple times, and the Lankan captain.

While the Sri Lankan skipper could not make it count, removed lbw for 46 one ball after being put down by Rabeya Khan, Hasini Perera forced Bangladesh suffer.

She achieved a first international fifty, making 85 from 99 deliveries and building an important 74-run stand fifth-wicket collaboration with Nilakshi de Silva.

Bangladesh, spearheaded by Shorna's 3-27, pulled themselves back to the game, with De Silva's dismissal in the 34th over initiating a Sri Lanka collapse from 174 with four wickets down to 202 all out.

While batting second, Sri Lanka's opening bowlers Malki Madara and Prabodhani restricted the opposition to 23 with one wicket down in a disappointing powerplay and they were afterwards brought down to 44 for three.

Sharmin and Joty rebuilt their score, contributing an 82-run partnership for the fourth wicket stand before Sharmin retired hurt for a stubborn 64 in the 36th innings segment.

It was advantage Bangladesh heading into the remaining two innings segments, with only 12 runs necessary.

Nevertheless, Dasanayaka dismissed Ritu and gave away merely three runs before the captain's decisive intervention, with Rabeya Khan, Nahida, captain Joty and Marufa Akter all sent back as Sri Lanka grabbed the win at the final moment.

Finally, it was a game of composure. The highly experienced Lankan captain, who directed away a handful of team-mates as she set herself to deliver the last over, held hers. Bangladesh failed to.

There will be numerous inquiries about the team's batting performance. They possibly have been needing 270 to 280 with Sri Lanka appearing comfortable on 159-4 in the 30th bowling phase, but in contrast the target was much lower.

Nevertheless, Bangladesh displayed insufficient intent from ball one, scoring at below 2.5 scoring rate during the initial phase, experiencing a early batting collapse, and eventually forcing themselves excessive to do.

But whatever problems there are with their batting lineup, if they had taken their chances in the field, that 203 total objective would have been substantially smaller.

It took them three attempts to break the 72-run stand second-wicket, with wicketkeeper Joty being unable to take a tough catch as wicketkeeper to remove Hasini Perera on her score of 23 before the captain survived from a return catch chance against Rabeya.

The batter was missed once more on 55 runs and 63, the final opportunity flying directly to Jhilik at cover field, before ultimately being given out leg before wicket by Shorna Akter as she tried to increase the tempo with partners getting out near her.

Afterwards in the batting effort, there was furthermore a failed stumping and a failed run-out, while the latter was a somewhat regrettable, with Jhilik substituting with the keeping duties after an injury to Joty.

Sadly for the team, such fielding issues are far from a isolated incident. They've failed to catch 14 opportunities from a possible 27 chances at this World Cup and boast the lowest fielding effectiveness (48.1 percent) of the participating teams.

They are a squad who are overall moving in the right direction – they are playing in only their second one-day World Cup after all – but inadequate fielding is a obvious concern which demands improvement.