The Lankan team overcomes the Bangladeshi side to keep their tournament hopes breathing

ICC Women's World Cup, Navi Mumbai

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

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

The Lankan side win by seven runs margin

The Lankan cricket team took four crucial dismissals in the last over to achieve a heart-stopping triumph over their opponents and keep their narrow hopes of making it for the tournament knockout stage alive.

Chasing a attainable score of 203 on a good batting surface in the Mumbai stadium, Bangladesh required nine runs from the final six balls.

Yet, Sri Lanka captain Athapaththu secured three crucial wickets in four balls and Nilakshi de Silva ran out Nahida to secure a exciting success for the Lankan team.

The win – Sri Lanka's first of the competition after three defeats and two washed-out matches against Australia and the Kiwi side – moves them tied on four match points with India and the New Zealand side, who meet each other on Thursday.

Bangladesh, in contrast, experienced a fifth consecutive setback since winning their first match against Pakistan and have been eliminated.

While Bangladesh got off to the excellent commencement, with Marufa striking with the opening bowl of the match to send back Vishmi Gunaratne, they were rightfully punished for a poor fielding display.

They offered lifelines to Perera, who was missed on three occasions, and Athapaththu.

Although the Sri Lankan skipper was unable to capitalise, sent back lbw for 46 just one delivery after being put down by Rabeya, Hasini Perera forced Bangladesh regret it.

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

Bangladesh, led by Shorna's 3-27, fought themselves back to the contest, with Nilakshi's wicket in the 34th innings segment triggering a Sri Lanka collapse from 174-4 to 202 total.

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

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

It was advantage the chasing team approaching the remaining two overs, with only 12 more runs necessary.

Yet, Dasanayaka removed Ritu Moni and gave away merely three scoring runs before the captain's chaos, with Rabeya, Nahida Akter, skipper Joty and Marufa Akter all dismissed as Sri Lanka grabbed the win at the death.

Ultimately, it was a match of composure. The highly experienced Lankan captain, who ushered away a several of fellow players as she got ready to deliver the final over, held her composure. Bangladesh failed to.

There will be many inquiries about Bangladesh's batting performance. They possibly have been needing around 270-280 with the Lankan team seeming settled on 159 for four in the 30th bowling phase, but instead the chase was considerably smaller.

However, Bangladesh displayed insufficient aggression from ball one, accumulating runs at less than 2.5 scoring rate during the powerplay, suffering a top-order collapse, and ultimately leaving themselves overwhelming to achieve.

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

It needed them three tries to end the 72-run second-wicket, with keeper Joty failing to grab a challenging opportunity while keeping to remove Hasini Perera on 23 before Athapaththu survived from a caught and bowled chance chance against Rabeya.

The batter was missed once more on 55 and her score of 63, the latter chance traveling right to Jhilik at cover field, before eventually being dismissed lbw by Shorna as she tried to up the ante with batting partners falling beside her.

Subsequently in the batting effort, there was also a missed stumping and a missed run-out, although the run-out chance was a somewhat unlucky, with Jhilik deputising with the wicketkeeping gloves following an injury to the regular keeper.

Regrettably for Bangladesh, such fielding woes are not at all a isolated incident. They've missed 14 chances from a potential 27 opportunities at this World Cup and display the worst catching success rate (48.1 percent) of the eight teams.

They are a side who are typically moving in the correct path – they are playing in just their second one-day World Cup ultimately – but substandard fielding standards is a obvious concern which demands attention.