The Lankan team defeats Bangladesh to maintain their World Cup tournament hopes ongoing

Women's Cricket World Cup, Navi Mumbai

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

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

Sri Lanka win by seven runs margin

The Lankan cricket team claimed four crucial dismissals in the decisive over to achieve a thrilling victory over their opponents and maintain their slim aspirations of making it for the tournament knockout stage intact.

Chasing a below-par target of 203 on a good batting surface in Navi Mumbai, Bangladesh required nine additional runs from the last six balls.

However, Lankan skipper Chamari Athapaththu took three wickets in four balls and Nilakshi de Silva ran out Nahida Akter to achieve a exciting victory for Sri Lanka.

The victory – the Lankan team's first of the competition after three losses and two abandoned games against the Australian team and the Kiwi side – moves them tied on four points with India and the New Zealand side, who meet each other on the coming Thursday.

Bangladesh, on the other hand, suffered a fifth consecutive defeat since securing victory in their initial game against the Pakistani team and have been removed from contention.

Even though Bangladesh made the ideal beginning, with Marufa Akter striking with the initial ball of the game to send back Vishmi Gunaratne, they were appropriately punished for a disappointing fielding display.

They gifted reprieves to Perera, who was dropped multiple times, and Athapaththu.

While the Sri Lankan skipper was unable to capitalise, dismissed leg before wicket for 46 a single bowl after being missed by Rabeya Khan, Perera forced the opposition regret it.

She scored a maiden international 50-run score, making 85 from 99 deliveries and contributing to an significant 74-run stand fifth-wicket with Nilakshi de Silva.

Bangladesh, spearheaded by Shorna Akter's impressive bowling figures, pulled themselves back into the match, with De Silva's removal in the 34th over triggering a Lankan downfall from 174 with four wickets down to 202 total.

In reply, Sri Lanka's opening bowlers Madara and Prabodhani contained Bangladesh to 23 for one in a lacklustre opening overs and they were later diminished to 44 for three.

Sharmin and Nigar Sultana Joty rebuilt their innings, putting on an 82-run partnership for the fourth wicket before Sharmin left the field injured for a resolute 64 in the 36th over.

It was advantage the chasing team entering the last two innings segments, with only 12 runs needed.

Yet, Sugandika Dasanayaka sent back Ritu Moni and gave away merely three scoring runs before Athapaththu's chaos, with Rabeya, Nahida, captain Joty and Marufa all sent back as the Lankan team grabbed the victory at the very end.

Finally, it was a game of nerves. The highly experienced Lankan captain, who ushered away a several of teammates as she set herself to deliver the decisive over, maintained hers. The opposition could not.

There will be many inquiries about the team's batting display. They possibly have been pursuing 270 to 280 with the Lankan team looking at ease on 159 for four in the 30th innings segment, but instead the target was considerably smaller.

Nevertheless, the batting side lacked aggression from ball one, scoring at less than 2.5 scoring rate during the opening overs, suffering a early batting collapse, and ultimately forcing themselves overwhelming to do.

But no matter what problems there are with their batting, if they had seized their opportunities in the fielding department, that 203-run target target would have been significantly smaller.

It required them three tries to terminate the 72-run second-wicket, with wicketkeeper Nigar Sultana not managing to take a challenging chance behind the stumps to send back Hasini Perera on her score of 23 before the captain was spared from a caught and bowled chance chance against Rabeya.

Perera was dropped again on her score of 55 and 63, the final opportunity traveling right to Rubya Haider Jhilik at cover field, before finally being dismissed lbw by Shorna as she tried to increase the tempo with batting partners falling around her.

Afterwards in the batting effort, there was additionally a missed stumping and a failed run-out, even though the latter was a somewhat unfortunate, with Rubya Haider substituting with the wicketkeeping gloves due to an physical problem to the regular keeper.

Regrettably for Bangladesh, such fielding problems are far from a one-off. They've missed 14 catches from a potential 27 chances at this tournament and boast the lowest catch efficiency (48.1 percent) of the eight teams.

They are a team who are overall progressing in the proper way – they are competing in just their second 50-over World Cup ultimately – but poor fielding performance is a prominent issue which requires attention.