The Lankan team overcomes Bangladesh to maintain their campaign ongoing

Women's Cricket World Cup, 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); Chamari Athapaththu 4-42

The Lankan side emerge victorious by seven runs

The Lankan cricket team took four crucial dismissals in the last over to achieve a nail-biting victory over Bangladesh and keep their faint aspirations of making it for the tournament knockout stage alive.

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

However, Sri Lanka captain Chamari Athapaththu claimed three wickets in four balls and de Silva dismissed via run-out Nahida to bring about a exciting win for Sri Lanka.

The win – the Lankan team's maiden of the competition after three losses and two washed-out matches against the Australian team and the Kiwi side – moves them tied on four tournament points with India and New Zealand, who confront each other on Thursday.

Bangladesh, however, endured a fifth successive defeat since securing victory in their first match against the Pakistani team and have been knocked out.

While Bangladesh got off to the excellent commencement, with Marufa Akter striking with the first delivery of the match to send back Gunaratne, they were deservedly made to pay for a disappointing fielding performance.

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

Even though the Sri Lankan skipper could not make it count, sent back leg before wicket for 46 one ball after being dropped by Rabeya Khan, Hasini Perera made the opposition regret it.

She registered a first international fifty, scoring 85 from 99 deliveries and sharing an important 74-run fifth-wicket with De Silva.

Bangladesh, guided by Shorna Akter's three wickets for 27 runs, pulled themselves back in the game, with De Silva's dismissal in the 34th bowling segment triggering a Sri Lanka downfall from 174 for four to 202 complete.

While batting second, Sri Lanka's initial pace attack Madara and Prabodhani restricted Bangladesh to 23-1 in a lacklustre opening overs and they were later brought down to 44 with three wickets lost.

Sharmin Akter and Nigar Sultana Joty restored their score, contributing 82 runs for the fourth wicket before the batter withdrew due to injury for a resolute 64 in the 36th innings segment.

It was leaning toward Bangladesh approaching the last two innings segments, with just 12 additional runs required.

Nevertheless, Dasanayaka sent back Ritu and conceded just three scoring runs before Athapaththu's dramatic spell, with Rabeya Khan, Nahida Akter, skipper Joty and Marufa all dismissed as the Lankan team seized the win at the very end.

Ultimately, it was a contest of nerve. The highly experienced Athapaththu, who ushered away a several of team-mates as she prepared to deliver the final over, maintained hers. The opposition did not.

There will be many inquiries about the team's batting effort. They could easily have been pursuing 270 to 280 with Sri Lanka seeming settled on 159-4 in the 30th bowling phase, but instead the required total was considerably smaller.

However, the batting side showed little intent from the very beginning, making runs at less than 2.5 runs each over during the opening overs, experiencing a early batting collapse, and finally forcing themselves too much to accomplish.

But no matter what issues there are with their batting, if they had taken their catches in the fielding area, that 203-run target target would have been substantially lower.

It required them three efforts to terminate the 72-run stand second-wicket, with keeper Joty failing to grab a tough catch behind the stumps to remove Hasini Perera on 23 before Athapaththu got a reprieve from a caught and bowled chance against Rabeya.

Perera was dropped once more on 55 runs and her score of 63, the last attempt flying straight to Jhilik at cover position, before ultimately being given out lbw by Shorna Akter as she attempted to increase the tempo with teammates getting out around her.

Subsequently in the innings, there was also a missed stumping and a run-out opportunity lost, even though the latter was a somewhat unlucky, with Jhilik substituting with the wicketkeeping gloves due to an injury to Joty.

Regrettably for Bangladesh, such fielding woes are nowhere near a isolated incident. They've dropped 14 catches from a potential 27 opportunities at this World Cup and display the poorest fielding effectiveness (48.1 percent) of the competing sides.

They are a side who are generally moving in the right direction – they are playing in merely their second ODI World Cup after all – but poor fielding standards is a obvious concern which needs focus.