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

ICC Women's World Cup, Navi Mumbai

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

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

The Lankan side emerge victorious by seven runs margin

Sri Lanka took four wickets in the decisive over to achieve a thrilling victory over Bangladesh and maintain their slim hopes of making it for the World Cup semi-finals alive.

Chasing a below-par target of 203 on a batting-friendly pitch in the Mumbai stadium, the Bangladeshi team wanted nine additional runs from the remaining six balls.

Yet, Lankan skipper Athapaththu secured three crucial wickets in four deliveries and Nilakshi de Silva dismissed via run-out Nahida Akter to achieve a thrilling success for Sri Lanka.

The win – the Lankan team's maiden of the tournament after three defeats and two no-results against Australia and New Zealand – elevates them level on four tournament points with India and New Zealand, who face each other on Thursday.

The Bangladeshi team, however, suffered a fifth straight loss since winning their first match against the Pakistani team and have been removed from contention.

Even though the Bangladeshi side got off to the perfect start, with Marufa taking a wicket with the opening bowl of the encounter to dismiss Gunaratne, they were appropriately punished for a disappointing fielding effort.

They gifted lifelines to Hasini Perera, who was spilled multiple times, and the Lankan captain.

Although Athapaththu was unable to capitalise, sent back lbw for 46 one ball after being dropped by Rabeya, Hasini Perera forced the opposition suffer.

She scored a first international 50-run score, scoring 85 from 99 bowls and contributing to an important 74-run fifth-wicket association with De Silva.

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

While batting second, the Lankan team's initial pace attack Madara and Prabodhani restricted Bangladesh to 23 for one in a uninspiring initial phase and they were later brought down to 44 with three wickets lost.

Sharmin and Nigar Sultana Joty rebuilt their innings, adding an 82-run partnership for the fourth wicket stand before Sharmin retired hurt for a determined 64 in the 36th bowling phase.

It was in favor of Bangladesh entering the final two overs, with merely 12 runs required.

However, Dasanayaka dismissed Ritu and gave away merely three runs before Athapaththu's decisive intervention, with Rabeya Khan, Nahida, skipper Joty and Marufa all sent back as the Lankan team snatched the win at the final moment.

In the end, it was a game of nerve. The highly experienced Lankan captain, who ushered away a few of fellow players as she set herself to bowl the last over, maintained her nerve. The opposition failed to.

There will be plenty of doubts about Bangladesh's batting performance. They could easily have been pursuing 270 or 280 with Sri Lanka seeming at ease on 159 for four in the 30th over, but rather the required total was much lower.

Nevertheless, the batting side lacked purpose from the very beginning, making runs at less than 2.5 runs per over during the initial phase, undergoing a early batting collapse, and finally forcing themselves excessive to achieve.

But no matter what issues there are with their batting, if they had seized their chances in the fielding department, that 203-run target target would have been considerably less.

It required them three attempts to break the 72-run stand second-wicket, with keeper Joty failing to grab a challenging opportunity behind the stumps to remove Perera on 23 runs before the captain got a reprieve from a caught and bowled opportunity against Rabeya Khan.

The batter was missed again on 55 runs and her score of 63, the final opportunity flying straight to Rubya Haider Jhilik at cover, before eventually being given out leg before wicket by Shorna as she sought to increase the tempo with batting partners getting out near her.

Subsequently in the innings, there was additionally a stumping chance missed and a run-out opportunity lost, even though the latter was a slightly unfortunate, with Jhilik substituting with the keeping duties after an physical problem to Joty.

Sadly for Bangladesh, such fielding issues are far from a single occurrence. They've failed to catch 14 catches from a available 27 opportunities at this tournament and display the worst catching success rate (48.1 percent) of the participating teams.

They are a side who are overall progressing in the correct path – they are playing in just their second one-day World Cup ultimately – but poor fielding performance is a prominent issue which requires attention.