Sri Lanka beats the Bangladeshi side to preserve their campaign ongoing

Women's Cricket World Cup, Mumbai

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

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

The Lankan side win by seven runs margin

The Lankan cricket team took four wickets in the final over to complete a thrilling win over their opponents and maintain their slim chances of making it for the tournament knockout stage intact.

Chasing a below-par score of 203 on a good batting surface in Navi Mumbai, Bangladesh wanted nine runs from the remaining six bowls.

However, Lankan skipper Athapaththu claimed three important dismissals in four balls and Nilakshi de Silva dismissed via run-out Nahida Akter to secure a exciting win for the Lankan team.

The triumph – Sri Lanka's first of the World Cup after three unsuccessful matches and two washed-out matches against the Australian team and New Zealand – elevates them level on four tournament points with India and the New Zealand side, who face each other on the coming Thursday.

The Bangladeshi team, in contrast, suffered a fifth successive setback since securing victory in their first match against the Pakistani team and have been removed from contention.

Even though Bangladesh got off to the ideal beginning, with Marufa striking with the initial ball of the match to remove Gunaratne, they were rightfully made to pay for a poor fielding effort.

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

While the Sri Lankan skipper failed to capitalise, dismissed lbw for 46 just one delivery after being dropped by Rabeya Khan, Perera forced Bangladesh pay.

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

Bangladesh, spearheaded by Shorna Akter's 3-27, dragged themselves back into the game, with Nilakshi's wicket in the 34th innings segment triggering a Sri Lanka batting collapse from 174 with four wickets down to 202 all out.

During their chase, the Lankan team's starting bowlers Malki Madara and Udeshika Prabodhani contained the opposition to 23 with one wicket down in a lacklustre powerplay and they were afterwards diminished to 44 with three wickets lost.

Sharmin Akter and Nigar Sultana Joty rebuilt their batting effort, adding 82 for the fourth wicket stand before the batter withdrew due to injury for a resolute 64 in the 36th over.

It was advantage Bangladesh entering the last two bowling phases, with merely 12 runs required.

Nevertheless, Dasanayaka dismissed Ritu and conceded just three runs before Athapaththu's dramatic spell, with Rabeya, Nahida, captain Joty and Marufa Akter all removed as Sri Lanka grabbed the victory at the final moment.

Finally, it was a contest of nerves. The very experienced Athapaththu, who ushered away a few of team-mates as she prepared to deliver the last over, held hers. Bangladesh did not.

There will be many doubts about Bangladesh's batting performance. They possibly have been pursuing 270 to 280 with the Lankan team looking comfortable on 159-4 in the 30th bowling phase, but rather the target was significantly less.

Yet, the batting side showed little aggression from the very beginning, accumulating runs at less than 2.5 scoring rate during the initial phase, suffering a top-order collapse, and eventually making themselves overwhelming to do.

But whatever difficulties there are with their batting approach, if they had seized their opportunities in the fielding department, that 203 total target would have been substantially less.

It took them three attempts to break the 72-run partnership second-wicket, with keeper Nigar Sultana being unable to take a tough catch behind the stumps to dismiss Perera on her score of 23 before Athapaththu was spared from a caught and bowled chance chance against Rabeya.

The batter was spilled further on 55 and 63 runs, the final opportunity traveling right to Jhilik at cover field, before finally being given out lbw by Shorna as she attempted to increase the tempo with partners falling near her.

Afterwards in the game, there was also a failed stumping and a run-out opportunity lost, while the latter was a little regrettable, with Rubya Haider deputising with the wicketkeeping gloves after an fitness issue to the regular keeper.

Regrettably for Bangladesh, such fielding woes are nowhere near a one-off. They've dropped 14 opportunities from a possible 27 opportunities at this World Cup and boast the lowest fielding effectiveness (48.1%) of the participating teams.

They are a team who are typically progressing in the correct path – they are competing in only their second 50-over World Cup after all – but inadequate fielding standards is a glaring problem which requires improvement.