The Lankan team overcomes Bangladesh to maintain their campaign breathing

ICC Women's World Cup, Mumbai

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

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

Sri Lanka win by seven runs margin

The Lankan cricket team secured four wickets in the final over to complete a thrilling win over their opponents and keep their narrow hopes of making it for the tournament knockout stage alive.

Needing a attainable score of 203 on a good batting surface in the Mumbai stadium, the Bangladeshi team needed nine more runs from the last six deliveries.

Nevertheless, Lankan skipper Chamari Athapaththu claimed three crucial wickets in four deliveries and de Silva dismissed via run-out Nahida Akter to bring about a exciting win for Sri Lanka.

The victory – Sri Lanka's first of the tournament after three losses and two abandoned games against the Australian team and New Zealand – moves them tied on four tournament points with India and New Zealand, who face each other on Thursday.

Bangladesh, on the other hand, experienced a fifth consecutive loss since securing victory in their first match against the Pakistani team and have been eliminated.

While the Bangladeshi side made the excellent commencement, with Marufa Akter taking a wicket with the initial ball of the match to remove Vishmi Gunaratne, they were rightfully punished for a poor fielding display.

They offered reprieves to Perera, who was dropped three times, and Athapaththu.

Even though Athapaththu was unable to capitalise, dismissed leg before wicket for 46 one ball after being dropped by Rabeya, Hasini Perera forced Bangladesh regret it.

She achieved a first international 50-run score, scoring 85 from 99 bowls and contributing to an significant 74-run partnership fifth-wicket collaboration with De Silva.

Bangladesh, guided by Shorna's three wickets for 27 runs, pulled themselves back in the game, with De Silva's wicket in the 34th over initiating a Lankan collapse from 174-4 to 202 total.

While batting second, the Lankan team's initial pace attack Madara and Udeshika Prabodhani contained the opposition to 23 for one in a uninspiring powerplay and they were subsequently brought down to 44 with three wickets lost.

Sharmin Akter and Joty restored their score, adding an 82-run partnership for the fourth wicket collaboration before the batter retired hurt for a resolute 64 in the 36th over.

It was advantage Bangladesh heading into the remaining two bowling phases, with merely 12 additional runs required.

However, Dasanayaka removed Ritu and conceded just three scoring runs before Athapaththu's chaos, with Rabeya, Nahida Akter, skipper Joty and Marufa all removed as the Lankan team snatched the victory at the death.

Finally, it was a contest of composure. The seasoned Athapaththu, who moved aside a handful of team-mates as she got ready to bowl the final over, maintained hers. The opposition could not.

There will be plenty of inquiries about Bangladesh's batting performance. They possibly have been pursuing 270 or 280 with the Lankan team seeming settled on 159 with four wickets down in the 30th innings segment, but instead the target was considerably smaller.

Nevertheless, the batting side showed little aggression from ball one, making runs at below 2.5 scoring rate during the initial phase, suffering a initial wicket loss, and finally leaving themselves overwhelming to do.

But whatever problems there are with their batting approach, if they had taken their opportunities in the fielding area, that 203 total objective would have been considerably smaller.

It needed them three attempts to terminate the 72-run partnership second-wicket collaboration, with keeper Joty not managing to grab a challenging opportunity while keeping to remove Hasini Perera on 23 before the captain got a reprieve from a caught and bowled chance opportunity against Rabeya Khan.

Perera was spilled again on 55 and 63, the latter chance going directly to Rubya Haider Jhilik at cover position, before eventually being trapped lbw by Shorna as she tried to accelerate the scoring with batting partners getting out near her.

Afterwards in the innings, there was also a missed stumping and a run-out opportunity lost, even though the latter was a somewhat regrettable, with Rubya Haider deputising with the keeping duties following an injury to Joty.

Regrettably for the team, such fielding problems are not at all a one-off. They've failed to catch 14 opportunities from a possible 27 chances at this tournament and display the worst catch efficiency (48.1 percent) of the competing sides.

They are a side who are typically progressing in the proper way – they are playing in only their second one-day World Cup in the end – but poor fielding standards is a prominent problem which needs focus.