The Lankan team overcomes the Bangladeshi side to keep their World Cup campaign ongoing

Women's Cricket World Cup, Mumbai

Sri Lanka 202 (48.4 overs): Hasini Perera 85 (99); Shorna Akter 3-27

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

The Lankan side win by seven runs

The Lankan cricket team took four wickets in the decisive over to seal a thrilling victory over their opponents and keep their narrow aspirations of making it for the tournament knockout stage intact.

Needing a attainable score of 203 on a favorable wicket in Navi Mumbai, Bangladesh wanted nine additional runs from the final six bowls.

Nevertheless, Lankan skipper Athapaththu took three important dismissals in four balls and de Silva ran out Nahida to achieve a exciting win for Sri Lanka.

The win – Sri Lanka's first of the tournament after three losses and two no-results against Australia and New Zealand – pushes them tied on four tournament points with the Indian team and the New Zealand side, who meet each other on the coming Thursday.

Bangladesh, in contrast, endured a fifth successive defeat since securing victory in their initial game against Pakistan and have been knocked out.

Even though the Bangladeshi side made the perfect start, with Marufa striking with the initial ball of the encounter to send back Vishmi Gunaratne, they were rightfully penalized for a disappointing fielding effort.

They gifted reprieves to Hasini Perera, who was spilled three times, and the Lankan captain.

While Athapaththu could not take advantage, sent back leg before wicket for 46 a single bowl after being dropped by Rabeya Khan, Perera made Bangladesh suffer.

She scored a first international fifty, scoring 85 from 99 deliveries and contributing to an important 74-run stand fifth-wicket collaboration with De Silva.

Bangladesh, led by Shorna Akter's impressive bowling figures, pulled themselves back into the contest, with De Silva's wicket in the 34th bowling segment initiating a Lankan downfall from 174-4 to 202 complete.

During their chase, the Lankan team's starting bowlers Malki Madara and Prabodhani contained the opposition to 23 for one in a lacklustre initial phase and they were afterwards diminished to 44-3.

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

It was in favor of Bangladesh approaching the last two innings segments, with just 12 more runs required.

However, Sugandika Dasanayaka sent back Ritu Moni and conceded merely three runs before Athapaththu's dramatic spell, with Rabeya Khan, Nahida Akter, captain Joty and Marufa all sent back as Sri Lanka snatched the win at the final moment.

Finally, it was a contest of composure. The very experienced Athapaththu, who directed away a several of teammates as she set herself to deliver the last over, maintained hers. The opposition failed to.

There will be many doubts about the team's batting performance. They possibly have been needing around 270-280 with the Lankan team seeming at ease on 159 with four wickets down in the 30th over, but instead the required total was significantly less.

However, Bangladesh showed little aggression from the start, accumulating runs at below 2.5 scoring rate during the powerplay, experiencing a initial wicket loss, and ultimately making themselves overwhelming to achieve.

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

It needed them three tries to break the 72-run stand second-wicket collaboration, with keeper Nigar Sultana being unable to hold a difficult catch behind the stumps to send back Perera on her score of 23 before the captain got a reprieve from a caught and bowled possibility against Rabeya.

The batter was missed once more on her score of 55 and her score of 63, the latter chance traveling right to Rubya Haider Jhilik at cover, before finally being trapped lbw by Shorna Akter as she tried to accelerate the scoring with batting partners being dismissed near her.

Afterwards in the batting effort, there was also a missed stumping and a missed run-out, while the second one was a somewhat regrettable, with Rubya Haider deputising with the wicketkeeping gloves after an physical problem to the regular keeper.

Regrettably for Bangladesh, such fielding problems are far from a single occurrence. They've missed 14 chances from a available 27 opportunities at this World Cup and have the worst catching success rate (48.1%) of the competing sides.

They are a squad who are generally progressing in the right direction – they are participating in only their second 50-over World Cup in the end – but substandard fielding performance is a obvious issue which needs focus.