Sri Lanka beats the Bangladeshi side to maintain their campaign breathing

Women's Cricket World Cup, Mumbai

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

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

Sri Lanka emerge victorious by seven runs margin

Sri Lanka claimed four wickets in the last over to complete a nail-biting victory over their opponents and keep their faint aspirations of making it for the tournament knockout stage ongoing.

Pursuing a below-par score of 203 on a batting-friendly pitch in the Mumbai stadium, the Bangladeshi team needed nine runs from the remaining six bowls.

Yet, Lankan skipper Chamari Athapaththu claimed three important dismissals in four deliveries and Nilakshi de Silva dismissed via run-out Nahida Akter to achieve a thrilling win for the Lankan team.

The victory – the Lankan team's first of the tournament after three unsuccessful matches and two abandoned games against the Australian team and the Kiwi side – pushes them tied on four points with the Indian team and the New Zealand side, who face each other on the coming Thursday.

The Bangladeshi team, in contrast, endured a fifth successive setback since securing victory in their tournament opener against the Pakistani team and have been knocked out.

While Bangladesh made the perfect start, with Marufa taking a wicket with the initial ball of the game to dismiss Vishmi Gunaratne, they were rightfully made to pay for a disappointing fielding display.

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

Even though the Sri Lankan skipper was unable to make it count, dismissed lbw for 46 one ball after being dropped by Rabeya, Hasini Perera made the opposition regret it.

She registered a first international half-century, scoring 85 from 99 balls and sharing an crucial 74-run partnership fifth-wicket association with De Silva.

Bangladesh, spearheaded by Shorna Akter's impressive bowling figures, fought themselves back in the game, with De Silva's wicket in the 34th bowling segment initiating a Lankan downfall from 174 with four wickets down to 202 complete.

While batting second, Sri Lanka's initial pace attack Malki Madara and Udeshika Prabodhani limited Bangladesh to 23-1 in a lacklustre powerplay and they were subsequently diminished to 44 with three wickets lost.

Sharmin Akter and Joty rebuilt their innings, putting on 82 runs for the fourth wicket collaboration before Sharmin left the field injured for a determined 64 in the 36th bowling phase.

It was advantage Bangladesh heading into the last two overs, with merely 12 more runs required.

However, Sugandika Dasanayaka removed Ritu and allowed only three scoring runs before Athapaththu's decisive intervention, with Rabeya Khan, Nahida Akter, skipper Joty and Marufa Akter all removed as the Lankan team grabbed the victory at the death.

Finally, it was a game of nerves. The highly experienced Lankan captain, who directed away a few of team-mates as she set herself to deliver the last over, held hers. Bangladesh did not.

There will be numerous doubts about the team's batting performance. They possibly have been chasing 270 to 280 with the Lankan team seeming comfortable on 159 with four wickets down in the 30th bowling phase, but instead the chase was much lower.

However, Bangladesh lacked purpose from the start, accumulating runs at less than 2.5 runs per over during the opening overs, experiencing a early batting collapse, and finally leaving themselves too much to achieve.

But no matter what difficulties there are with their batting approach, if they had seized their chances in the field, that 203-run target objective would have been substantially lower.

It needed them three attempts to break the 72-run partnership second-wicket association, with wicketkeeper Joty not managing to hold a challenging opportunity as wicketkeeper to dismiss Perera on 23 before Athapaththu got a reprieve from a caught and bowled chance against Rabeya.

Perera was missed further on 55 and 63, the latter chance flying straight to Jhilik at cover, before ultimately being trapped lbw by Shorna Akter as she attempted to accelerate the scoring with partners falling beside her.

Afterwards in the batting effort, there was additionally a missed stumping and a missed run-out, while the second one was a somewhat unlucky, with Rubya Haider deputising with the gloves following an physical problem to Joty.

Regrettably for Bangladesh, such fielding problems are far from a one-off. They've dropped 14 opportunities from a available 27 chances at this World Cup and boast the lowest fielding effectiveness (less than 50%) of the eight teams.

They are a squad who are generally progressing in the right direction – they are competing in just their second one-day World Cup ultimately – but substandard fielding performance is a prominent concern which demands attention.