The Lankan team overcomes the Bangladeshi side to preserve their campaign ongoing

Women's Cricket World Cup, Navi Mumbai

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

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

Sri Lanka emerge victorious by seven runs

Sri Lanka took four crucial dismissals in the last over to achieve a heart-stopping triumph over Bangladesh and maintain their slim aspirations of making it for the tournament knockout stage ongoing.

Pursuing a modest target of 203 on a batting-friendly pitch in the Mumbai stadium, Bangladesh needed nine additional runs from the remaining six balls.

Yet, Lankan skipper Athapaththu claimed three wickets in four bowls and Nilakshi de Silva dismissed via run-out Nahida to secure a exciting victory for the Lankan team.

The win – the Lankan team's maiden of the competition after three defeats and two washed-out matches against Australia and the Kiwi side – pushes them level on four points with the Indian team and the New Zealand side, who face each other on Thursday.

The Bangladeshi team, in contrast, experienced a fifth straight loss since securing victory in their tournament opener against Pakistan and have been eliminated.

While the Bangladeshi side got off to the perfect start, with Marufa Akter taking a wicket with the first delivery of the match to send back Gunaratne, they were deservedly punished for a poor fielding effort.

They gifted second chances to Hasini Perera, who was dropped three times, and Athapaththu.

While Athapaththu could not take advantage, sent back lbw for 46 just one delivery after being missed by Rabeya, Hasini Perera made the opposition pay.

She registered a maiden international half-century, accumulating 85 from 99 balls and contributing to an important 74-run partnership fifth-wicket collaboration with Nilakshi de Silva.

Bangladesh, led by Shorna Akter's impressive bowling figures, fought themselves back to the contest, with Nilakshi's wicket in the 34th bowling segment triggering a Lankan batting collapse from 174-4 to 202 complete.

In reply, Sri Lanka's starting bowlers Malki Madara and Udeshika Prabodhani contained the opposition to 23-1 in a lacklustre opening overs and they were subsequently diminished to 44 with three wickets lost.

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

It was advantage Bangladesh entering the final two innings segments, with merely 12 additional runs necessary.

Yet, Sugandika Dasanayaka removed Ritu Moni and gave away only three runs before the captain's chaos, with Rabeya Khan, Nahida, captain Joty and Marufa Akter all dismissed as the Lankan team seized the win at the final moment.

Finally, it was a match of nerve. The seasoned Athapaththu, who moved aside a several of team-mates as she set herself to deliver the decisive over, maintained her composure. The opposition could not.

There will be many inquiries about the team's batting effort. They might well have been pursuing around 270-280 with the Lankan team seeming comfortable on 159 for four in the 30th innings segment, but in contrast the chase was considerably smaller.

Nevertheless, the batting side displayed insufficient purpose from ball one, accumulating runs at less than 2.5 runs each over during the initial phase, undergoing a initial wicket loss, and finally forcing themselves too much to achieve.

But whatever issues there are with their batting approach, if they had taken their chances in the fielding department, that 203-run target objective would have been significantly less.

It needed them three efforts to break the 72-run stand second-wicket association, with keeper Nigar Sultana failing to take a difficult opportunity behind the stumps to remove Perera on 23 runs before Athapaththu survived from a caught and bowled possibility against Rabeya Khan.

Perera was missed again on 55 runs and 63 runs, the last attempt going right to Rubya Haider Jhilik at cover position, before ultimately being trapped lbw by Shorna as she attempted to up the ante with teammates falling around her.

Afterwards in the batting effort, there was furthermore a stumping chance missed and a failed run-out, even though the latter was a slightly unlucky, with Jhilik substituting with the wicketkeeping gloves after an fitness issue to Joty.

Regrettably for the team, such fielding problems are far from a single occurrence. They've missed 14 catches from a potential 27 opportunities at this competition and display the poorest catching success rate (less than 50%) of the competing sides.

They are a side who are generally progressing in the right direction – they are participating in just their second one-day World Cup after all – but substandard fielding performance is a glaring problem which demands improvement.