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

ICC Women's World Cup, Mumbai

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

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

The Lankan side emerge victorious by seven runs margin

The Lankan cricket team secured four wickets in the final over to seal a thrilling win over their opponents and preserve their slim aspirations of qualifying for the tournament knockout stage intact.

Needing a attainable total of 203 on a favorable wicket in the Mumbai stadium, the Bangladeshi team needed nine additional runs from the remaining six balls.

However, Lankan skipper Athapaththu claimed three important dismissals in four bowls and Nilakshi de Silva dismissed via run-out Nahida to achieve a thrilling success for Sri Lanka.

The win – Sri Lanka's initial of the competition after three losses and two washed-out matches against Australia and New Zealand – pushes them tied on four points with India and New Zealand, who meet each other on the coming Thursday.

Bangladesh, in contrast, experienced a fifth consecutive defeat since securing victory in their first match against the Pakistani team and have been removed from contention.

Even though the Bangladeshi side got off to the excellent commencement, with Marufa Akter striking with the opening bowl of the encounter to send back Gunaratne, they were appropriately made to pay for a subpar fielding performance.

They gifted second chances to Hasini Perera, who was dropped three times, and the Lankan captain.

Although the Sri Lankan skipper failed to make it count, sent back lbw for 46 just one delivery after being dropped by Rabeya Khan, Hasini Perera made the opposition pay.

She scored a first international fifty, making 85 from 99 bowls and building an important 74-run partnership fifth-wicket with De Silva.

The Bangladeshi team, spearheaded by Shorna's impressive bowling figures, fought themselves back into the match, with Nilakshi's dismissal in the 34th innings segment causing a Sri Lanka downfall from 174-4 to 202 complete.

In reply, Sri Lanka's initial pace attack Malki Madara and Udeshika Prabodhani restricted the opposition to 23-1 in a uninspiring initial phase and they were later brought down to 44-3.

Sharmin and Nigar Sultana Joty reconstructed their innings, putting on 82 runs for the fourth wicket before Sharmin left the field injured for a resolute 64 in the 36th innings segment.

It was leaning toward the chasing team approaching the remaining two bowling phases, with just 12 more runs required.

Yet, Sugandika Dasanayaka removed Ritu Moni and conceded merely three scoring runs before Athapaththu's decisive intervention, with Rabeya Khan, Nahida, skipper Joty and Marufa all dismissed as Sri Lanka seized the triumph at the death.

Finally, it was a game of nerve. The seasoned Lankan captain, who moved aside a few of teammates as she set herself to bowl the last over, maintained hers. The opposition failed to.

There will be many questions about Bangladesh's batting effort. They could easily have been pursuing 270 to 280 with Sri Lanka looking settled on 159 for four in the 30th bowling phase, but instead the required total was considerably smaller.

Yet, Bangladesh showed little aggression from the start, accumulating runs at less than 2.5 runs each over during the opening overs, suffering a initial wicket loss, and eventually forcing themselves too much to achieve.

But no matter what issues there are with their batting, if they had seized their opportunities in the field, that 203-run target goal would have been substantially smaller.

It needed them three efforts to terminate the 72-run second-wicket, with keeper Nigar Sultana being unable to grab a challenging opportunity behind the stumps to remove Hasini Perera on her score of 23 before the captain was spared from a caught and bowled chance against Rabeya.

The batter was spilled further on 55 and 63 runs, the latter chance flying directly to Jhilik at cover field, before finally being trapped lbw by Shorna Akter as she attempted to increase the tempo with batting partners falling near her.

Later in the batting effort, there was additionally a missed stumping and a run-out opportunity lost, although the second one was a slightly unfortunate, with Rubya Haider deputising with the keeping duties after an fitness issue to Joty.

Sadly for the team, such fielding problems are nowhere near a one-off. They've missed 14 catches from a potential 27 opportunities at this World Cup and have the worst fielding effectiveness (48.1 percent) of the competing sides.

They are a team who are generally heading in the proper way – they are playing in only their second one-day World Cup ultimately – but inadequate fielding is a obvious concern which demands improvement.